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SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 

CHICAGO : 623 S. Wabash Ave. NEW YORK : 8 East 34th Street 



WALDEN 

OR 

LIFE IN THE WOODS 

BY 

HENRY D. THOREAU 



EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE 
BY 

JAMES CLOYD BOWMAN, M.A. 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE 
IOWA STATE COIXEGE 



SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
CHICAGO NEW YORK 



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K^ 
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Copyright 1917 by 
Scott, Foresman and Company 



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OCT 27 m 

©C1,A477289 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. Economy 27 

II. Where I Lived, and What I Lived For 97 

III. Beading 114 

IV. Sounds 125 

V. Solitude ; 141 

VI. Visitors 151 

VII. The Beanfield 164 

VIII. The Village 175 

IX. The Ponds 181 

X. Baker Farm 2()6 

XI. Higher Laws 214 

XII. Brute Neighbors 226 

XIII. House-warming 239 

XIV. Former Inhabitants and Winter Visitors 255 

XV. Winter Animals 269 

XVI. The Pond in Winter 279 

XVII. Spring 294 

XVIII. Conclusion 313 



INTRODUCTION 
1 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Henry David Thoreau was born July 12, 1817, in Concord, 
Massachusetts. On his father's side he was descended from a 
merchant family. His grandfather, a man of Scotch and 
French extraction, came to New England from the island of 
Jersey, and opened a store on Long Wharf in Boston. Before 
his death, he moved to Concord, where Henry's father earned 
on the family business until through reverses he lost all of his 
inherited substance. Later, he found a modest support for his 
family through the manufacture of lead pencils, Henry thus 
characterized his father : "I think I may say that he was wholly 
unpretending, and there was this peculiarity in his aim, that 
though he had pecuniary difficulties to contend with the greater 
l)art of his life, he always studied how to make a good article, 
pencil or other (for he practiced various arts), and was never 
satisfied with what he had produced. Nor was he ever in the 
least disposed to put off a poor one for the sake of pecuniary 
gain, as if he labored for a higher end," 

The personality of Henry's mother stood in broad contrast to 
that of his father. She was of old New England stock, possessed 
unusual vivacity, inherent nimbleness of wit, and a natural love 
of society. An incessant talker, she had an unfailing fund of 
reminiscence and anecdote, and never hesitated, when necessity 
arose, to defend herself with sarcastic rejoinder. She possessed 
the good taste which was necessary to make the simple furnish- 
ings of her home attractive, and the finesse which enabled her 

5 



6 WALDEN 

to impress her guests with the charm and artistry of her enter- 
tainment. Although the brilliant color of her bonnet sometimes 
shocked her Puritan neighbors, her stability of character main- 
tained their respect. 

From the blending of parental characteristics, there was pro- 
duced in Thoreau a strikingly complex personality with many 
contradictory traits of character. From his father he in- 
herited a quiet, retiring manner, an unflinching honesty, a 
Puritanic conscience, an unusual ideality, and a lofty aim; from 
his paternal ancestry came also a "stimulating contrariness," 
and a great love of nature, Avhich invited him to spend much 
of his time out-of-doors; from his mother, a gift of fine con- 
versation, and a convivial vein that notr infrequently dominated 
his action. He also received by birth a mechanical bent, which 
made him clever in the use of tools. 

Thureau's boyhood days were spent in Concord. He drove 
iiis father's cow to pasture, supplied logs for the family fire- 
jdace, and early began his lifelong attachment to the out-of- 
doors. As a boy he often preferred to watch his playmates 
rather than to take part in their games, although when the mood 
was on, he could lead them all in rollicking fun. Most of all, he 
enjoyed wandering alone across the fields and along the river 
in search for rare flowers and herbs or for Indian relics, and 
he felt especially repaid if he chanced to see an occasional 
Indian canoeing down the stream. With his brother John, he 
often hunted and fished. He was such a serious lad that at the 
age of ten the boys .nicknamed him "Judge." 

He was fitted — or as he preferred to say, "made unfit" — for 
college at the Concord Academy. Although he was frequently 
indifferent to the prescribed studies, he was always recognized as 
a lad of uncommonly "good understanding." It was during this 
period that he grounded himself in elementary Latin and Greek, 
the study of which later led him into the secrets of the philoso- 
phy and poetry of the ancient peoples, which he so much loved. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

He lays whatever deficiencies liis academic training suffered, not 
to his teachers, but to the fact that "those hours that should 
have been devoted to study have been spent in scouring the 
woods and exploring the lakes and streams of my native village." 
During these years he kept everything about the house in fault- 
less repair, and raised the best fruit and melons in the village. 
At the age of sixteen Thoreau entered Harvard. He helped 
to pay his way in part by occasional terms of teaching, and 
the college added to the small amount furnished in this way 
from a fund set apart for needy students. He was housed in 
Hollis, "with many and noisy neighbors." Preferring the library 
to the classroom, and a book and a secluded corner to a room 
filled with boisterous companions, he read everything he could 
find which related to classical English literature; so eager was he 
that he fairly devoured the twenty-one bulky volumes of Chal- 
mers' Collection of the English Poets. One of the members of 
his class describes him as "cold and unimpassioned," and adds 
that "he did not care for people; his classmates seemed very 
remote." He himself writes: "Though bodily I have been a 
member of Harvard University, heart and soul I have been far 
away among the scenes of my boyhood. . . , My spirit yearned 
for the sympathy of my old and almost forgotten friend. 
Nature." "Methinks I should be content to sit at the back- 
door in Concord, under the poplar-tree, henceforth forever." 
One can understand why he wrote: "The really diligent stu- 
dent in one of the hives of Cambridge college is as solitary as 
the dervish in the desert." One must not forget, however, that 
there was a very different side to his nature. He could also say 
with equal sincerity: "Think not that my classmates have no 
place in my heart, — but that is too sacred a matter even for a 
class-book." During his college days he acquired much knowl- 
edge that no professor ever required in a quiz. He read widely ; 
he often walked alone and fronted the essential facts of life; 
above all, he kept his own personality constantly expanding. 



g WALDEX 

Tlioreau was graduated from Harvard at the age of twenty, 
and President Quincy gave him a recommendation to the effect 
that he was "well qualified as an instructor, for employment in 
any public or private school or private family." He made a 
fruitless journey to Maine in search of a position. On his 
I'eturn for a few weeks during the fall of 1837 he taught in 
the Concord grammar school; but when the directors demanded 
that he administer corporal punishment, he resigned. During 
the following three years, in partnership with his brother John, 
he maintained a private academy in Concord. In addition to 
his regular duties, he read his first lecture on Society before the 
( 'oncord Lyceum and began his first Journal or day-book. He 
made a voyage of exploration in a boat of his own construction, 
on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers with his brother John; 
an experience which was later turned into his first published 
vvork, The Week. About this time he began to write for the 
Dial. He also found time to fall in love; but when he dis- 
(Mjvered his brother John's attachment for the same girl, he 
resigned in his favor. 

When Thoreau abandoned teaching in 1841, he accepted the 
invitation to become a member of the Emerson household, and 
lived for the following two years with one of the most intellectu- 
ally stimulating families in America. His acquaintance with 
Emerson dates back to 1837 when a friend of the two families 
called Emerson's attention to the fact that a certain passage 
from the young man's diary contained a thought similar to one 
expressed by the older man in a recent lecture. The result was that 
Emerson made an appointment to meet Thoreau, and ever after- 
wards took an active interest in his advancement. Thoreau's 
duties during the time he lived with Emerson were as varied as 
the qualities of his personality. He kept the house in repair; he 
furnished the fuel for the fire ; he planted and hoed the garden ; 
he helped with the editing and business management of tlii' 
Dial. On one or two occasions when Mr. Emerson was absent 



INTRODUCTION 9 

ou a lecture tour, he acted as sole editor of the magazme. In 
these ways, he gave full return for his entertainment. 

This intimate contact with Emerson had a marked influence 
upon Thoreau. For a time his manners, his tone of voice, his 
mode of expression, hecame almost the exact counterpart of 
Emerson's. Probably, however, this outward transformation 
came about through a strong natural magnetism in Emerson 
rather than though any conscious imitation by Thoreau. It is 
certain that the younger man's independence of mind and nobil- 
ity of character impressed the older man not a little. Emer- 
son's son relates that his father "delighted to be led to the very 
inner shrines of the wood-gods by this man, clear-eyed and true 
and stern enough to be trusted Avith their secrets." As Thoreau 
grew older, he sturdily maintained his individuality, and lived 
his own life according to the Genius of his own being. Thoreau 
was also stimulated much by Mrs. Emerson's high opinion of 
him. During this period he continued to write for the Biol, 
and to study literature, philosophy, and Nature. He pub- 
lished a Walk to Wachusett in the "Boston Miscellany." He 
grasped the opportunity for rapid mental expansion which 
came to him through meeting and sharing the talk of the many 
distinguished visitors who flocked to Mr. Emerson. Diligently 
he kept his daily entries in his Journal. 

During the winter of 1842 occurred the death of Thoreau's 
brother John and of Emerson's son Waldo. In John he lost the 
only really intimate friend that he had ever possessed except 
Emerson ; in Waldo, the child that he loved most. These events 
had a marked effect in deepening his introspective life. Con- 
cerning his brother, he wrote: "A man can attend but one fu- 
neral in his life, can behold but one cornse." "Only Nature has 
a right to prieve pernetuallv, for she onlv is innocent. Soon the 
ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing" alonsr the river which he 
frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting- serenity 
will appear in the face of God, and will not be sorrowful, if he 



10 WALDEN 

is not." "As for Waldo," he said, "lie died as the mist rises 
from the brook, which the sun will soon dart his rays through. 
Do not the flowers die every autumn'? ... I was not startled 
to hear that he was dead : it seemed the most natural event that 
could happen. His fine organization demanded it, and nature 
gently yielded its request. . . . Neither will Nature manifest 
any sorrow at this death, but soon the note of the lark will be 
heard down in the meadow, and fresh dandelions will spring 
from the old stocks where he plucked them last summer." In 
this experience with death he came to view human life in its 
larger aspects as related to the serenity of the universe. 

In 1843, he received an invitation to tutor the children of 
Emerson's brother William, who lived at Castleton, Staten 
Island. The offer was accepted in the hope that it might lead to 
permanent literary employment in New York City, as he was 
already recognized as one of the most promising contributors to 
the Dial. He met the various New York publishers, but with 
little success aside from forming a lasting friendship witli 
Horace Greeley. He also tried to find employment as a school 
teacher, but failed in this, too, and returned to Concord in the 
fall of 1843, when he had completed his engagement as tutor. 

During the following year, he lived at home, and helped his 
father manufacture lead pencils. He applied himself with 
great diligence, and was soon able "from a box containing a 
bushel or more of loose pencils to take up just a dozen pencils 
at every grasp." In attempting to improve the quality and 
make a better pencil than was then on the market, he carried on 
a tireless series of experiments, and having somewhat satisfied 
himself with the results, took his work to the chemists and 
artists of Boston for their examination. They reported that his 
pencil was the equal of the best imported product of London. 
When he came home with the proof of the excellence of his 
workmanship, his friends assured him that his fortune was as 
good as made. He, however, replied that he was done with lead 



INTRODUCTION H 

pencils. "I would not do again that I have done once." The 
fact is — though he maintained the utmost silence on the subject 
— that he was dreaming- dreams and building castles in the air. 
He was interested in knowledge, in the development of his own 
personality, in the art of living well, rather than in the conven- 
tional routine of business. He was constantly aiming at turn- 
ing his experience into books; this explains why he studied 
Nature so consistently^ and why he kept his Journal so faith- 
fully for so many years. "Here have I been these forty years 
learning the language of these fields that I may the better ex- 
press myself." 

Arrived at the age of twenty-eight, Thoreau faced the crisis 
of his life. On the one hand, business invited him to comfort, 
to local popularity, to wealth ; on the other, authorship and the 
development of his own i)ersonality, to the disappointment of 
his friends and neighbors, to poverty. Thoreau proved him- 
self a man who "dared to live his thoughts." His nature de- 
manded for its fullest development "a retreat suitable for phil- 
osophical meditation, and the practice of a simpler, hardier, 
and healthier life." He was influenced not a little in his de- 
cision by the silent influence of Emerson, by the encourage- 
ment of Channing and Alcott, and by the spirit of the times. 
Social reform dominated the thought of Concord. Almost 
every person had some scheme or other for improving society. 
Most people advocated a return from the complex, artificial 
life of society, to simplicity, to nature. In order to attain to 
this state it was pretty generally agreed that each should 
largely earn his living with his own hands. But this was 
only the minor part of the program : the real fruits were to 
be garnered in high thinking, in "the feeling of the infinite." 
The movement was, in fact, a healthy reaction against the 
narrow, selfish, conventional materialism of the age. As to 
the most practical means for securing these ends, there was a 
difference of opinion. Some maintained that the solution lay in 



12 WALDEN 

collective action, in communism ; for these, the Brook Farm ex- 
periment was the most noteworthy effort. Others believed in 
individualism; for these, Thoreau's life at Walden Pond was 
the most successful experiment. 

Thoreau seems to have considered trying the experiment of 
retiring from society as early as 1841. For several days dur- 
ing this year he visited his friend, Stearns Wheeler, who was 
attempting a solitary life in a hut on Flint's Pond. Thoreau 
wrote in his Journal at the time : "I want to go soon and live 
away by the pond, where I shall hear only the wind whispering 
among the reeds." Later, Thoreau's fancy w^as attracted to the 
Hollowell Farm, which stood in deep seclusion near the river, 
about two miles distant from Concord. He went so far as to 
make a bargain to buy it, and was disappointed for a time when 
the owner asked to be released from his agreement. Later still, 
after the death of his brother John, he naturally turned to 
Walden Pond. It was here that as boj's he and John had swum 
and fished and hunted. It was here that he had often drifted 
about in his boat, lost in musings and day-dreams. It was here 
that Emerson was planning to establish a summer camp. It 
was here that his friend Channing strongly urged him to estab- 
lish himself : "I see nothing for you in this earth but that field 
which I once christened 'Briers' ; go out upon that, build youi-- 
self a hut, and there begin the grand process of devouring your- 
self alive. I see no alternative, no other hope for you. Eal 
yourself up ; you will eat nobody else, nor anything else." 

Early one morning near the end of March, 1845, Thoreau 
obeyed the insistent impulse which had been growing upon him 
for three or four years. He secured Emerson's permission to 
"squat" on his land, borrowed Alcott's axe, and betook himself 
to the shore of Walden Pond. Leisurely he began to cut and 
frame logs for his hut. He took special pains to find time to 
get the full enjoyment from his Avork. Each evening he went 
home to the village to sleep. Within three or four weeks he had 



INTRODUCTION I3 

the logs ready for the walls. He dug bis cellar on the southern 
slope of a hill, thirty or forty yards from the water's edge, 
bought the planks from the shanty of an Irishman who worked 
on the Fitchburg Railroad, and transported them to his build- 
ing site. In the beginning of May, "rather to improve so good 
an occasion for neighborliness than from any necessity," Tho- 
reau invited some of his friends to help "raise'' his house. He 
was especially proud that among those present were Emerson, 
Curtis, Channing, and Alcott. On the fourth day of July — in 
commemoration of his own individual independence — he took up 
his abode in the hut, and gradually brought it to completion 
before the winter set in. 

Thoreau was fitted as one man in a thousand for the experi- 
ment which he undertook. "My greatest skill,". he wrote, "has 
been to want but little." He was always rich I.acause his wants 
were so few, and because he knew so well how to supply them 
himself. When in need of money he could turn his hand to any 
sort of job that wanted to be done since he had "as many trades 
as fingers." "He was expert as a walker, swimmer, runner, rower, 
and in all outdoor employments." In fact, he was more at home 
without than within doors. His personality was especially fitted to 
en J03' li\nng alone ; he "never found the companion that was so 
companionable as solitude." He was fortunate, too, in that his 
nearest neighbor dwelt a mile away. It gave him elbow room 
to exercise unobserved his individuality. The wild flowers 
and herbs, the fishes, and the wild animals were his nearest 
neighbors; they satisfied his incessant thirst for the wild in 
nature. And yet he was not so far removed as to become 
a confirmed hermit. His friends came frequently to share his 
copious conversation and his simple hospitality. Nearly every 
day he walked to the village to acquaint himself with the hap- 
penings of the world, and to meet his immediate family and 
his friends. Often he was invited out to supper, and did not 
return to his lodge until a late hour. Above all, his life at 



14 WALDEN 

Walden Pond gave him the long desired leisure for meditation 
and for the practice of writing. His thoughts gradually rip- 
ened, and his style refined itself under ceaseless effort. His idea 
in going to Walden Pond was not after all to separate himself 
from society; it was rather to develop his own personality in 
order that he might the better contribute to society. He went 
to the pond in the spirit of a student ; he came back to Concord 
a teacher. 

Thoreau's manner of life at Walden Pond was picturesque 
and striking, to say the least. His first "religious exercise" of 
the day Avas an early morning bath in the pond. After break- 
fast he scrupulously swept his floor and dusted his furniture, — 
though he was careful that no time should be wasted that might 
be emjDloyed in "dusting his brain." Some mornings his hoe 
resounded merrily on the stones of his bean field; other morn- 
ings, says he, "I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till 
noon, rapt in a reverie, midst the pines, and hickories, and 
sumachs, in undisturbed solitude, while the birds sang around 
or flitted noiselessly through the house, until by the sun falling 
in at my west window, or the noise of some traveler's wagon on 
the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time." He 
found long intervals for the study of wild nature ; he spent on 
the average of at least one-half of each day in the open air.. 
He became the "self-appointed inspector of snow storms and 
rain storms" and watched with much pleasure the dawns and 
the sunsets. Not a flavor of the breeze passed him unheeded 
and he opened every sense to its natural surroundings. He 
became as truly a part of nature as were the trees and the 
birds and the wild animals. A portion of each day he set apart 
for the reading of his favorite authors and for the careful writ- 
ing of his diligent observations and experiences. "If the day 
and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life 
emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs — is 
more elastic, starrv, and imnKH'tal — that is your success." He 



INTRODUCTION 15 

was never in a hurry; he was never unemployed. His indi- 
viduality found a perfect environment for its normal growth 
and expression. The crudities of youth, which he had brought 
with him to Walden Pond, gradually disappeared as he took 
on the decision and dignity of manhood. 

When a friend called, Thoreau would seat him opposite him- 
self, and would lead him, with rare conversational power, into 
the ideal realms of philosophy or Oriental religion and poetry 
or contemporary life; or he would take him forth under the 
trees and along the pond, where he found inexhaustible re- 
sources for entertainment. "Every plant or flower on the bank 
or in the water, and every fish, turtle, frog, lizard about us, was 
transformed by the wand of his knowledge from the low form 
into which the spell of our ignorance had reduced it, into a 
mystic beauty. Like no one else, he knew the meaning of every 
note and movement of bird and beast, and fish and insect."^ 
When his guest chanced to stay beyond the dinner hour, Thoreau 
took him to the hillside in front of his cabin, where he had 
made a hole in the ground inlaid with cobblestones. Here 
he built a wood fire, and while the stones heated, brought 
flour or meal from the hut, carried it to the shore, and mixed it 
with pond water. Returning, he raked the coals aside, spread 
the dough upon the heated stones, brought from his cellar 
dressed horned pouts, placed them upon other stones, and served 
beans which had been previously baked. Soon the guest was 
captivated by the delicious flavor of the primitive cuisine. On 
these occasions there was one thing that Thoreau never did: 
he never explained or apologized for anything that was imper- 
fect or lacking. He shared exactly Avhat he had; and few 
guests ever left him without feeling the charm of his enter- 
tainment. 

After maintaining his residence at Walden Pond for two 
years and two months, Thoreau returned to his father's house 

iM"oncure Conway, Fraser's Magazine, April, 1666. 



IQ WALDEN 

to live. He was now a man of thirty ; he was a deep student of 
literature and a profound observer of nature; he was, too, a 
master of prose style. He says : "I left the woods for as good 
reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had 
several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for 
that one." Perhaps it seemed to him that he had exhausted the 
possibilities of the experiment. He doubtless said to himself 
as he had said earlier with reference to the manufacturing of 
lead pencils : "I would not do again that I have done once." 
At any rate, so far as he himself Avas concerned, his experiment 
was an entire success. He had so simplified his life that with a 
weekly outlay of seven-and-twent}'' cents he had an abundance 
of all sorts. He was thus able to maintain himself by working 
on the average six weeks a year. The remainder of his time he 
had industriously spent in establishing his philosophy of life, 
in developing the finest qualities of his personalitj^, and in 
perfecting his style of writing. When he left Walden Pond, 
his character was no longer in a plastic state ; the trend of his 
life was established. 

Thoreau's influence upon others has gradually grown until it 
has become very marked. His writing revealed the almost un- 
limited possibilities of a careful, accurate observation of the 
water, the fields, and the woods. In fact it opened an entirely 
new field to literature, and gave rise to a school of American 
naturalists.^ His philosophy of life attracted wide attention 
in England and America, and encouraged many persons to turn 
from the artificial toward the natural and the real, to simplify 
their mode of living. His constantly increasing popularity is 
sutlicient evidence as to the success of his experiment. 

What remains of Thoreau's life may be briefly related. He 
again accepted an invitation to live in the Emerson home from 

lAmong the writers of this school may be mentioned Thomas Went- 
worth Higginson, John Burroughs, John Muir, Bradford Torrey, William 
Hamilton Gibson, Frank Bolles, Charles Conrad Abbott, Harriett Mann 
Miller, and Florence Merrlam Bailey. 



INTRODUCTION 17 

October, 1847, to July, 184S. while the master of the house was 
making his second European tour. When Emerson returned, 
Thoreau went back to his father's house, and, except when ab- 
sent upon excursions, he lived with his family for the remainder 
of his life. In 1847, through the kind offices of Horace Greeley, 
Thoreau published an essay on "Carlyle" in Graham's Magazine, 
and in 1848, a paper on "Ktaadn and the Maine Woods" in the 
Union Magazine. For these he received his first money for his 
writing, the sura of one hundred and twenty-five dollai^s. 

In 1849, Thoreau published at his own expense, through a 
Boston bookseller, his first book, A Week on the Concord and 
Merrimack Rivers. In addition to a description of his river voy- 
age, the book contained a rather miscellaneous collection of 
poems, of articles which had appeared in the Dial, of passages 
from his Journal, and of brief philosophical discourses. At the 
end of four years but three hundred copies of the book had been 
sold and given out for review. The remaining seven hundred 
copies were returned to the author. Thoreau writes thus with a 
dry humor concerning the incident : "The wares are sent me at 
last, and I have an opportunity to examine my purchase. They 
are something more substantial than fame, as my back knows, 
which has borne them np two flights of stairs to a place similar 
to that to which they trace their origin. ... I have now a 
library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred o1: 
which I wrote myself. . . . This is authorship. These are the 
work of my brain. ... I can see now what I write for, and the 
result of my labors. Nevertheless, in spite of this result, sitting 
beside the inert mass of my works, I take up my pen tonight, to 
record what thought or experience I may have had, with as much 
satisfaction as ever." 

In the fall of the same year, Thoreau, with a friend, took the 
first of his Cape Cod tramps. In the fall of 1850, with Chaii- 
ning, he spent a week in Canada. In 1853, he made his second 
excursion into the Maine woods. These journeys furnished hira 



18 WALDEN 

with material for a number of articles in Putnam's Montlili/ 
Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly, and for two posthumous 
hooks. He thus describes his usual method of travel: "The 
cheapest way to travel is to go afoot, carrying a dipper, a 
spoon, and a fish-line, some Indian meal, some salt, and some 
sugar. When you come to a brook or pond, you can catch fish 
and cook them; or you can buy a loaf of bread at a farmer's 
house for fourpence, moisten it in the next brook that crosses 
the road, and dip it into your sugar — this alone will last you 
the whole day." He also included a supply of tea. He wore 
serviceable old clothes, and carried a small bundle of necessaiy 
luggage. Thus aecoutered, he traveled at the rate of thirtj' 
miles per day "by the week together." When necessity de- 
manded, he found entertainment at some farmhouse; otherwise, 
he slept out-of-doors. People usually, at first sight, thought him 
a peddler of small wares, or a tramp. This method of travel, 
however, exactly suited his purpose. It gave him the first-hand 
knowledge of nature which he desired; but during these years 
Thoreau's writing brought him so little financial return that he 
was compelled to earn most of his living by surv^eying land and 
making pencils. He earned a small amount each year from 
lecturing. He kept his life so simple and his wants so few, 
however, that he needed to work but a few weeks during the 
spring and fall. The remainder of the time he spent in the 
jiursuit of his favorite interests. 

During the summer of 1854 came the greatest event of Tho- 
reau's literary career, — the publication of Walden, by Ticknor 
and Company, of Boston. The greater portion of the book was 
oiiginally set down in his diary during the time that he lived at 
AValden Pond. Not a few passages, however, were written at a 
later date, while he was selecting, arranging, and remodeling 
Ills materials, and putting them into final form. He published 
I lie book, he says, in order to satisfy his curious townsmen who 
weie constantly inquiring concerning his mode of life. He also 



INTRODUCTION 19 

felt that he had certain not unimportant truths to contribute to 
the social and intellectual life of his neighbors in Concord. The 
book attracted a considerable amount of attention, and the en- 
tire first edition was sold within a few years. The reputation 
of the book brought Thoreau into demand as a lecturer, and 
thus relieved his straitened circumstances to some extent. It 
also brought him a number of new friends. Among these was 
Frank B. Sanborn, who associated himself rather intimately 
with the author for two years, and later became his first 
biographer. 

In 1856 Avhile lecturing near New York City, Thoreau visited 
Walt Whitman. He wrote soon after this visit : "Whitman 
is apparently the greatest democrat the world has seen. Kings 
and aristocracy go by the board at once, as they have long de- 
served to." In 1857, John Brown visited Concord, and found 
Thoreau one of the most friendly toward his cause. Two years 
later Brown visited him again. When Brown fell into the hands 
of his captors at Harper's Feriy in 1859, it was Thoreau who 
most fearlessly championed his cause. The address which he 
delivered at Concord, Worcester, and Boston, is by far the most 
important of all Thoreau's public utterances. His indignation 
at his cautious and fearful neighbors reaches almost to the 
sublimity of the Hebrew Prophets. He looses his contempt for 
the petty conventions and tlie hypocrisies of the commonplace 
life everywhere about him, and lets his words fairly burn as 
they strike home. In the address which Emerson delivered at 
Thoreau's funeral, he spoke of Whitman and Brown and Joe 
Polls, Thoreau's Indian guide in Maine, as the three men who 
most impressed Thoreau during his later years. In this choice 
one sees afresh the assertion of the contradictoiy elements of 
Thoreau's personality. 

During the early summer of 1858, Thoreau, in company with 
his friend Blake, camped on Monadnoc. Later in the summer 
he took a trip to the White Mountains with his neighbor, Ed- 



20 WALDKN 

ward Hoar. Late in the fall, his English friend, Cholmondelay, 
tempted him with a trip to the West Indies. Thoreau, how- 
e\er, was obliged to refuse because of the sickness of his father. 
In the summer of 1860 he made a second visit to Monadnoc, — 
this time in company with his friend, Channing. These fre- 
(juent trips satisfied his incessant craving for the wild in nature 
and in animal life, and supplied him with material for his writ- 
ing. Whenever it became necessary, he busied himself for a 
few days or weeks at one or the other of his trades in order to 
earn a livelihood. 

In December, 1860, through exposure while surveying land, 
Thoreau contracted a severe cold, which soon developed into 
tuberculosis. This disease was constitutional with him; his 
brother John and his sister Helen had earlier succumbed to it. 
In the spring and early summer of 1861, his friends induced 
him to make an expedition to Minnesota and in company with 
the son of the educator, Horace Mann, he visited St. Paul and 
journeyed as far up the Minnesota Kiver as Redwood. Here 
he interested himself for a time in the Sioux Indians. Soon he 
became restless, and in July returned to Concord little benefited 
by his excursion. During the following winter his ailment rap- 
idly grew upon him. His sister Sophia wrote : "His spirits do 
not fail him ; he continues in his usual serene mood." He enter- 
tained numerous visitors during his last months. To one who 
solicitously inquired if he had made his peace with God, he re- 
plied: "I have never quarrelled with Him." To a friend he 
wrote: "I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret 
nothing." At another time he wrote : "For joy I could em- 
brace the earth. I shall delight to be buried in it. And then 1 
think of those amongst men who will know I love them, though 
1 tell them not." It was in this mood that he died, May 6, 1862. 
As long as any strength remained in him, he revised, rewrote, 
and rearranged the materials which he had collected in his Jour- 
nal; he followed his individual Genius to the very end. Emer- 



INTRODUCTION 21 

son at the grave appropriately said: "His soul was made for 
the noblest society ; he had in a short life exhausted the capabili- 
ties of this world ; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there 
is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home." 

The posthumous fame of Thoreau is without parallel in Amer- 
ican letters. During his life he studiously avoided personal ad- 
vertisement. At the time of his death he was generally un- 
known outside the boundaries of Concord. Of his two pub- 
lished works, the first was an almost complete failure and the 
second lacked much of phenomenal success. At his death he 
left behind him nothing to keep alive his meager reputation. 
His sister, into whose hands his manuscripts descended, did 
what she could to prevent their publication. Lowell, the first 
critic of renown to notice his work, scathed and belittled him 
unmercifully, and seemed to leave little more to be said. His 
few immediate friends mostly injured his chance for success 
by exaggerating his wrong traits of character. Yet in spite 
of his rejection by his own generation, a change began to come 
about during the eighties, and by the end of the nineties his 
fame had grown so rapidly as to beat down all opposition. 
Ten volumes of his works have been published since his death. 
He has found something like a dozen biographers, and the 
critical articles concerning him reach into the hundreds. The 
interesting fact is that the tide of favorable opinion is still 
flowing in his direction. 

Thoreau's genius perhaps did not lie primarily in the field 
of literature. Many of his readers have sought him because of 
his delightful revelations of the out-of-doors; many others, 
because of the charm of his unique personality. In its com- 
i::lexity, its inapproachable austerity, its delightful • surprises, 
its perplexing contradictions, it furnishes much the same inex- 
haustible attraction as does nature herself. His seeing eye 
satisfies the searcher after fact ; his idealistic imagination floods 
the vision of the lover of fancy. His fame, -however, is based 



■2-2 WALDEN 

most securely upon his simple philosophy of life. In an age of 
increasing artificiality and extravagance, he maintained his 
naturalness and freedom. He distinguished clearly between the 
essentials of life and its mere external trappings. For him the 
joy of living was to be found in life itself; not in its artificial 
recreation. His advice is: "However mean your life is, 
meet it and live it. . . . Do not trouble yourself much to get 
new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn to the old; 
return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your 
clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not 
want society. . . . We are often reminded that if there were 
bestowed on us the wealth of Croesus, our aims must still be 
the same, and our means essentially the same. ... It is life 
near the bone where it is sweetest. . . . Superfluous wealth can 
buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one neces- 
sity of the soul." When one reads such a philosopher he 
feels — in spite of all the multiplied teachings in the opposite 
direction — that the realities of life are secure. And so long as 
they remain secure, so long the fame of Thoreau is likely to 
last. 

II 

Walden 

In Walden^ Thoreau describes the experiment which he under- 
took on the shore of Walden Pond, "for convenience sake put- 
ting the experience of two years into one." In a general way, 
the narrative follows the order of the seasons. In chapter I, 
the author discusses the slavery of modem life and shows how 
one may make himself independent and happy, and then gives 
a detailed account of the expense involved in building his house. 
In chapter II, he describes the location of his house and the man- 
ner of his life. In chapter III, he discourses upon reading. 
In chapters IV to XII inclusive, he describes those of his activi- 
ties that have to do primarily with summer; in chapter XIII, 



INTEODUCTION 23 

with autumn and the preparations for winter ; in chapters XIY 
to XVI inclusive, with winter ; in chapter XVII, with spring. In 
chapter XVIII, he summarizes the teaching of the entire book. 
Viewed as a whole, the book lacks form. This is due in part 
to the influence of Carlyle, and in part to Thoreau's manner of 
writing. The material was written in his Journal at intervals 
during a period of fifteen years. The entries were made inde- 
pendently of one another. When Thoreau came to put them to- 
gether in Walden, he found it impossible to blend the various 
parts into a perfect whole. The lack of form, however, had its 
advantage; it formed a receptacle into which Thoreau was able 
to place unhampered each of his moods and idiosyncrasies. The 
result is that Walden is one of the most intim.ate and human of 
written documents. The author's style is his ready servant. 
With it he can express each mood with equal felicity. The 
itemized bill for the construction of his house is related with 
the same fidelity and ease as are the descriptions of nature and 
the statements in regard to his ideal philosophy. The epigram- 
matic quality of Walden is due largely to the influence of Emer- 
son; its exaggeration, to the deliberate attempt of the author 
to wake his neighbors up. His style is, in fact, a sort of "celes- 
tial homespun," plain and not without harshness, but inter- 
woven with the golden woof of an intense, penetrative, sympa- 
thetic imagination. It shares, too, with Thoreau's personality 
something of the tang of the wild crab. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

List of Thoreau's Books. 
Riverside Edition — 

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. 

Walden; or, Life in the Woods. 

The Maine Woods. 

Cape Cod. 

Early Spring in Massachusetts: From the Journal of 

Thoreau. 
Summer: From the Journal of Thoreau. 
Autumn : From the Journal of Thoreau. 
Winter: From the Journal of Thoreau. 
Excursions (including A Yankee in Canada). 
Miscellanies. 
Familiar Letters of Henry David Thoreau. Edited by 

F. B. Sanborn. 
Walden Edition — 
A twenty-volume edition. This is the only edition that 

contains the Journal. 

Biographies of Thoreau : 

William Ellery Channing. 

Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist. New edition, edited by F. B. 
Sanborn, Boston, 1902. 
H. A. Page. 

Thoreau: His Life and Aims. Boston, 1877. 
Henry S. Salt. 

The Life of Henry David Thoreau. Revised edition, Lon- 



24 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 25 

Annie Russell Marble. 

Thoreau: His Home, Friends, and Books. New York, 
1902. 
F. B. Sanborn. 

Henry D. Tlwreau. Revised edition, Boston, 1909. 
Mark Van Doren. • 

Henry D. Thoreau. Boston, 1916. 

Bibliographies of Thoreau : 
John P. Anderson. 

Bibliography of Henry David Thoreau. Published as an 
appendix to Mr. Salt's Life of Thoreau. Revised edi- 
tion, London, 1896. 
Francis H. Allen. 

A Bibliography of Henry David Thoreau. Boston, 1908. 

Critical Essays: 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Thoreau" in Lectures and Bio- 
graphical Sketches, London, 1883. 
Lowell, James Russell. "Thoreau" in My Study Windows, 

Boston, 1871. 
Stevenson, Robert Louis. "Henry David Thoreau: His 

Character," in Familiar Studies of Men and Books, Lon* 

don, 1882. 
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. "Thoreau" in Short Studies 

of American Authors, Boston, 1888. 
Burroughs, John. (1) "Henry D. Thoreau" in Indoor 

Studies, Boston, 1889. (2) "Thoreau's Wildness" in 

Essays from the Critic, Boston, 1882. 
More, Paul Elmer. (1) "A Hermit's Notes on Thoreau" in 

Shelburne Essays, First Series, New York, 1904. (2) 

"Thoreau's Journal" in Shelburne Essays, Fifth Series, 

New York, 1908. 



WALDEN 



ECONOMY 

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of 
them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, 
in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden 
Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the 
labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. 
At present I am a sojourner in ci\dlized life again. 

I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of 
my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made 
by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some 
would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me -at 
all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural 
and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did 
not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others 
have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted 
to charitable purposes ; and some, who have large families, how 
many poor children I maintained. I will therefore ask those 
of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon 
me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this 
book. In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted ; in this 
it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main 
difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, 
always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so 
much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as 
well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrow- 



28 WALDEN 

ness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of 
every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his 
own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives ; 
some such account as he would send to his kindred from a dis- 
tant land ; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a 
distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly 
addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, 
they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that 
none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may 
do good service to him whom it fits. 

I would fain say something, not so much concerning the 
Chinese and Sandwich Islanders, as you who read these pages, 
who are said to live in Ncav England; something about your 
condition, especially your outward condition or circumstances in 
this world, in this town, what it is, whether it is necessary that 
it be as bad as it is, whether it cannot be improved as well as not. 
I have traveled a good deal in Concord; and eveiywhere, in 
shojDS, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to 
me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. What 
I have heard of Brahmins sitting exposed to four fires and look- 
ing in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their 
heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens over 
their shoulders "until it becomes impossible for them to resume 
their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing 
but liquids can pass into the stomach" ; or dwelling, chained for 
life, at the foot of a tree ; or measuring with their bodies, like 
caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires ; or standing on one leg 
on the tops of pillars, — even these forms of conscious penance 
are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which 
I daily witness. The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in 
comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; 
for they were only twelve, and had an end ; but I could never see 
that these men slew or captured any monster or flnished any 
labor. They have no friend lolas to burn with a hot iron the 



ECONOMY 29 

root of the hydra's head, but as soon as one head is crushed, two 
spring up. 

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have 
inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for 
these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they 
had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that 
they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were 
called Co labor in. Who made them serfs of the soin Why 
should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat 
only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their 
graves as soon as they are born ? They have got to live a man's 
life, pushing all these things before them, and get on as well as 
they can. How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh 
crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road 
of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its 
Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, 
tillage, mowing, pasture, and wood-lot! The portionless, who 
struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find 
it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh. 

But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man 
is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, 
commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an 
old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt 
and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they 
will find when they get to the end of it, if not before. It is said 
that Deucalion and Pyrrha created men by throwing stones over 
their heads behind them : — 

Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum, 
Et documenta, damus qua simus origine nati. 

Or, as Raleigh rhymes it in his sonorous way, — 

From thence our kind-hearted is, enduring pain and care, 
Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are. 



30 WALDEN 

So much for a blind obedience to a blundering: oracle, throwing 
the stones over their heads behind them, not seeing where they 
fell. 

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through 
mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious 
cares and superfluously coarse labors of life, that its finer fruits 
cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, 
are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the 
laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day ; he 
cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men ; his labor 
would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be any- 
thing but a machine. How can he remember well his igno- 
rance — ^which his growth requires — who has so often to use liis 
knowledge 1 We should feed and clothe him gratuitously some- 
times, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. 
The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can 
be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not 
treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. 

Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are 
sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that 
some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the din- 
ners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes 
which are fast w^earing or are already worn out, and have come 
to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your 
creditors of an hour. It is very evident w4iat mean and sneak- 
ing lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by 
experience ; always on the limits, trying to get into business and 
trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the 
Latins ces alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were 
made of brass ; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's 
brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, 
and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get cus- 
tom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offenses ; lying, 
flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civil- 



ECONOMY 31 

ity, or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous gener- 
osity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his 
shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his gro- 
ceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up 
something against a sick day, something to be tiieked away in an 
old chest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, 
in a brick bank ; no matter where, no matter how much or how 
little. 

I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost 
say, as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of 
servitude called Negro Slavery, there are so many keen and 
subtle masters that enslave both north and south. It is hard to 
have a southern overseer ; it is worse to have a northern one : but 
worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself. Talk of a 
divinity in man. Look at the teamster on the highway, wending 
to market by day or night ; does any divinity stir within him ? 
His highest duty to fodder and water his horses ! What is his 
destiny to him compared with the shipping interests ? Does not 
he drive for Squire Make-a-stir? How godlike, how immortal, 
is-he? See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day 
he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and pris- 
oner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own 
deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own 
private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which 
determines, or rather indicates, his fate. Self-emancipation 
even in the West Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination, 
— what Wilberf orce is there to bring that about *? Think, also, 
of the ladies of the land weaving toilet cushions against the last 
day, not to betray too green an interest in their fates ! As if you 
could kill time without injuring eternity. 

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is 
called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate 
city you go into the desperate country, and have to console your- 
self with the bravery of minks and mnskrats. A stereotyped but 



32 WALDEN 

unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the 
games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, 
for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom 
not to do desperate things. 

When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is 
the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and 
means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the 
common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. 
Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and 
healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never 
too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, 
however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What every- 
body echoes or in silence passes by as true today may turn out 
to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some 
had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on 
their fields. What old people say you cannot do you try and 
find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for 
new. Old people did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch 
fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going ; new people put a little dry 
wood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the 
speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase is. Age 
is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, 
for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost 
doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value 
by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice 
to give the young, their own experience has. been so partial, and 
their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, 
as they must believe ; and it may be that they have some faith 
left which belies that experience, and they are only less young 
than they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, 
and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even 
earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and 
probably cannot tell me anything, to the purpose. Here is life, 
an experiment to a great extent untried by me ; but it does not 



ECONOMY 33 

avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which 
I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said 
nothing about. 

One farmer says to me, "you cannot live on vegetable food 
solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with" ; and so he 
religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system 
with the raw material of bones, walking all the while he talks 
behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerks him 
and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle. Some 
things are really necessaries of life in some circles, the most 
helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuries merely, and 
in others still are entirely unknown. 

The whole ground of human life seems to some to have been 
gone over by their predecessors, both the heights and the valleys, 
and all things to have been cared for. According to Evelyn, 
"the wise Solomon prescribed ordinances for the very distances 
of trees; and the Roman praetors have decided how often you 
may go into your neighbor's land to gather the acorns which fall 
on it without trespass, and what share belongs to that neighbor." 
Hippocrates has even left directions how we should cut our 
nails; that is, even with the ends of the fingers, neither shorter 
nor longer. Undoubtedly the very tedium and ennui which pre- 
sume to have exhausted the variety and the joys of life are as oVd 
as Adam. But man's capacities have never been measured ; nor 
are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little 
has been tried. Whatever have been thy failures hitherto, "bo 
not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou hast 
left undone?" 

We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for 
instance, that the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at 
once a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this it 
would have prevented some mistakes. This was not the light in 
which I hoed them. The stars are the apexes of what wonderful 
triangles! What distant and different beings in the various 



34 WALDEN" 

mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the 
same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our 
several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers 
to another? Could a gi'eater miracle take place than for us to 
look through each other's eyes for an instant? We should live 
in all the ages of the world in an hour ; ay, in all the worlds of 
the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology ! — I know of no reading 
of another's experience so startling and informing as this 
would be. 

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in 
my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely 
to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I 
behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can, old 
man, — you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of 
a kind, — I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from 
all that. One generation abandons the enterprises of another 
like stranded vessels. 

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. 
We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly 
bestow elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as 
to our strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a 
well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate 
the importance of what work we do ; and yet how much is not 
done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? How vigilant 
we are ! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it ; all the 
day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers 
and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sin- 
cerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and deny- 
ing the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but 
there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one 
center. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a 
miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, 
"To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know 
what we do not know, that is true knowledge." When one man 



ECONOMY ^ 35 

has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his under- 
standing-, I foresee that all men will at lengrth establish their lives 
on that basis. 

Let us consider for a moment what most of the trouble and 
anxiety which I have referred to is about, and how much it is 
necessary that we be troubled, or, at least, careful. It would be 
some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in 
the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are 
the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken 
to obtain them; or even to look over the old day-books of the 
merchants, to see what it was that men most commonly bought 
at the stores, what they stored, that is, ^vhat are the grossest 
groceries. For the improvements of ages have had but little 
influence on the essential laws of man's existence ; as our skele- 
tons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our 
ancestors. 

By the words, necessari/ of life, I mean whatever, of all that 
man obtains bj^ his own exertions, has been from the first, or 
from long use has become, so important to human life that few^, 
if any, whether from savageness, or jioverty, or philosophy, ever 
attempt to do without it. JTo many creatures there is in this i 
sense but one necessary of life. Food. To the bison of the 
prairie it is a few inches of palatable grass, with water to drink ; 
unless he seeks the Shelter of the forest or the mountain's 
shadow. None of the brute creation requires more than Food 
and Shelter. The necessaries of life for man in this climate 
may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads 
of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have 
secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of 
life with freedom and a prospect of success. Man has invented, 
not only houses, but clothes and cooked food; and possibly from 
the accidental discovery of the warmth of fire, and the conse- 
quent use of it, at first a luxurj-, arose the present necessity to 
sit by it. We observe cats and dogs acquiring the same second 



36 WALDEN 

nature. By proper Shelter and Clothing we legitimately retain 
our own internal heat ; but with an excess of these, or of Fuel, 
that is, with an external heat greater than our own internal, may 
not cookery properly be said to begin ? Darwin, the naturalist, 
says of the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego that, while his own 
party, who were well clothed and sitting close to a fire, were far 
from too warm, these naked savages, who were farther off, were 
observed, to his great surprise, "to be streaming with perspira- 
tion at undergoing such a roasting." So, we are told, the New 
Hollander goes naked with impunity, while the European shiv- 
ers in his clothes. Is it impossible to combine the hardiness of 
these savages with the intellectualness of the civilized man? 
According to Liebig, man's body is a stove, and food the fuel 
which keeps up the internal combustion in the lungs. In cold 
weather we eat more, in warm less. The animal heat is the 
result of a slow combustion, and disease and death take place 
when this is too rapid ; or for want of fuel, or from some defect 
in the draught, the fire goes out. Of course the vital heat is not 
to be confounded with fire; but so much for analogy. It 
appears, therefore, from the above list, that the expression, 
animal life, is nearly synonymous with the expression, animal 
heat; for while Food may be regarded as the Fuel which keeps 
up the fire within us, — and Fuel serves only to prepare that 
Food or to increase the warmth of our bodies by addition from 
without, — Shelter and Clothing also serve only to retain the 
heat thus generated and absorbed. 

The grand necessity, then, for our bodies is to keep warm, 
to keep the vital heat in us. What pains we accordingly take, 
not only with our Food, and Clothing, and Shelter, but with our 
beds, which are our night-clothes, robbing the nests and breasts 
of birds to rrer)are this shelter within a shelter, as the mole has 
its bed of grass and leaves at the end of its burrow! The poor 
man is wont to complain that this is a cold world; and to cold, 
no less pliysical than social, we refer directly a great part of our 



ECONOMY 37 

ails. The summer, in some climates, makes possible to man a 
sort of Elysian life. Fuel, except to cook his Food, is then 
unnecessary; the sun is his fire, and many of the fruits are 
sufficiently cooked by its rays; while Food generally is more 
various, and more easily obtained, and Clothing and Shelter are 
wholly or half unnecessary. At the present day, and in this 
country, as I find my own experience, a few implements, a knife, 
an axe, a spade, a wheelbarrow, etc., and for the studious, lamp- 
light, stationery, and access to a few books, rank next to neces- 
saries, and can all be obtained at a trifling cost. Yet some, not 
wise, go to the other side of the globe, to barbarous and un- 
healthy regions, and devote themselves to trade for ten or twenty 
years, in order that they may live,^ — that is, keep comfortably 
warm, — and die in New England at last. The luxuriously rich 
are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot ; as 
I implied before, they are cooked, of course a la mode. 

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts, of 
life are not only not indispensable, but j^ositive hindrances to 
the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and com- 
forts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meager life 
than the poor. The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, 
Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been 
poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We know not 
much about them. It is remarkable that we know so much of 
them as we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers 
and benefactors of their race. None can be an impartial or wise 
observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we 
should call voluntary poverty. Of a life of luxury the fruit is 
luxury, whether in agiiculture, or commerce, or literature, or 
art. There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not 
philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once 
admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have 
subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wis- 
dom as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, 



38 WALDEN 

independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of 
tlie problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The 
success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier- 
like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live 
merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are 
in no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men. But why 
do men degenerate ever ? What makes families run out ? What 
is the nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys 
nations'? Are we sure that there is none of it in our own lives'? 
The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the outward 
form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, warmed, like 
his contemporaries. How can a man be* a philosopher and not 
maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men ? 

When a man is warmed by the several modes which I have 
described, what does he want next ? Surely not more warmth of 
the same kind, as more and richer food, larger and more splen- 
did houses, finer and more abundant clothing, more numerous, 
incessant, and hotter fires, and the like. When he has obtained 
those things which are necessary to life, there is another alter- 
native than to obtain the superfluities ; and that is, to adventure 
on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced. 
The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has >ent its 
radicle downward, and it may now send its shoot upward also 
with confidence. Why has man rooted himself thus firmly 
in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion 
into the heavens above? — for the nobler plants are valued 
for the fruit they bear at last in the air and light, far from 
the ground, and are not treated like the humbler esculents, 
which, though they may be biennials, are cultivated only till they 
have perfected their root, and often cut down at top for this 
])urpose, so that most would not know them in their flowering 
season. 

I do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures, 
who will mind their own affairs whether in heaven or hell, and 



ECONOMY 39 

perchance build more magnificently and spend more lavishly 
than the richest, without ever impoverishing themselves, not 
knowing how they live, — if, indeed, there are any such, as has 
been dreamed; nor to those who find their encouragement and 
inspiration in precisely the present condition of things, and 
cherish it with the fondness and enthusiasm of lovers, — and, to 
some extent, I reckon myself in this number ; I do not speak to 
those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and 
they know whether they are well employed or not ; — but mainly 
to the mass of men who are discontented, and idly complain- 
ing of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might 
improve them. There are some who complain most energetically 
and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they say, doing 
their duty. I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy but 
most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated 
dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have 
forged their own golden or silver fetters. 

If I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my 
life in years past, it would probably surprise those of my 
readers who are somewhat acquainted with its actual history ; it 
would certainly astonish those who know nothing about it. I 
will only hint at some of the enterprises which I have cherished. 

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been 
anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick 
too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and 
future, which is precisely the present moment ; to toe that line. 
You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in 
my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but 
inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I 
know about it, and never paint "No Admittance" on my gate. 

I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtledove, and am 
still on their trail. Many are the travelers I have spoken con- 
cerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they 



40 WALDEN 

answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, 
and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear 
behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if 
they had lost them themselves. 

To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if 
possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and 
winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, 
have I been about mine ! No doubt, many of my townsmen have 
met me returning from this enterprise, farmers starting for 
Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to their work. It 
is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, 
doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it. 

So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside .the town, 
trying to hear what was in the wind, to hear and carry it 
express ! I well-nigh sunk all my capital in it, and lost my own 
breath into the bargain, running in the face of it. If it had con- 
cerned either of the political parties, depend upon it, it would 
have appeared in the Gazette with the earliest intelligence. At 
other times watching from the observatory of some cliif or tree, 
to telegTaph any new arrival ; or waiting at evening on the hill- 
tops for the sky to fall, that I might catch something, though I 
never caught much, and that, manna-wise, would dissolve again 
in the sun. 

For a long time I was reporter to a journal, of no very wide 
circulation, whose editor has never yet seen fit to i:>rint the bulk 
of my contributions, and, as is too common with writers, I got 
only my labor for my pains. However, in this case my pains 
were their own reward. 

For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow storms 
and rain storms, and did my duty faithfully ; survej'or, if not of 
highways, then of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping 
them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, 
where the public heel had testified to their utility. 

I have looked after the wild stock of the town, which sive a 



ECONOMY 41 

faithful herdsman a good deal of trouble by leaping fences ; and 
I have had an eye to the unfrequented nooks and corners of the 
farm ; though I did not always know whether Jonas or Solomon 
worked in a particular field today; that was none of my busi- 
ness. I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand cherry and 
the nettle tree, the red pine and the black ash, the white grape 
and the yellow violet, which might have withered else in dry 
seasons. 

In short, I went on thus for a long time, I may say it without 
boasting, faithfully minding my business, till it became more 
and more evident that my townsmen would not after all admit 
me into the list of town officers, nor make my place a sinecure 
with a moderate allowance. My accounts, which I can swear to 
have kept faithfully, I have, indeed, never got audited, still less 
accepted, still less paid and settled. However, I have not set 
my heart on that. 

Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the 
house of a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. "Do you 
wish to buy any baskets ?" he asked. "No, we do not want any," 
was the reply. 

"What!" exclaimed the Indian, as he went out the gate, "do 
you mean to starve us?" Having seen his industrious white 
neighbors so well off, — that the lawyer had only to weave argu- 
ments, and by some magic wealth and standing followed, he had 
said to himself : I will go into business ; I will weave baskets ; it 
is a thing which I can do. Thinking that when he had made the 
baskets he would have done his part, and then it would be the 
white man's to buj'- them. He had not discovered that it was 
necessary for him to make it worth the other's while to buy them, 
or at least make him think that it was so, or to make something 
else which it would be worth his while to buy. I too had woven 
a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it 
worth any one's while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, 
did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of 



42 WALDEN 

studying bow to make it Avorth men's while to buy my baskets, 
I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The 
life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. 
Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the 
others? 

Finding that my fellow-citizens were not likely to offer me 
any room in the court house, or any curacy or living anywhere 
else, but I must shift for myself, T turned my face more exclu- 
sively than ever to the woods, where I was better known. I 
determined to go into business at once, and not wait to acquire 
the usual capital, using such slender means as I had already got. 
My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply 
nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business 
with the fewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing 
which for want of a little common sense, a little enterprise and 
business talent, appeared not so sad as foolish. 

I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; 
they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is with the 
Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, 
in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough. You will export 
such articles as the country affords, purely native products, 
much ice and pine timber and a little granite, always in native 
bottoms. These will be good ventures. To oversee all the details 
yourself in person; to be at once julot and captain, and owner 
and underwriter; to buy and sell and keep uhe accounts; to read 
every letter received, and write or read every letter sent; to 
superintend the discharge of imports night and day; to be upon 
many parts of the coast almost at the same time; — often the 
richest freight will be discharged upon a Jersey shore; — to be 
your own telegraph, unweariedly sweeping the horizon, speaking 
all passing vessels bound coastwise; to keep up a steady dis- 
patch of commodities, for the supply of such a distant and 
exorbitant market; to keep yourself informed of the state of the 
markets, prospects of war and peace everywhere, and anticipate 



ECONOMY 43 

the tendencies of trade and civilization, — taking advantage of 
the results of all exploring expeditions, using new passages and 
all improvements in navigation ; — charts to be studied, the posi- 
tion of reefs and new lights and buoys to be ascertained, and 
ever, and ever, the logarithmic tables to be corrected, for by the 
error of some calculator the vessel often splits upon a rock that 
should have reached a friendly pier, — there is the untold fate 
of La Perouse ; — universal science to be kept pace with, study- 
ing the lives of all great discoverers and navigators, great adven- 
turers and merchants, from Hanno and the Phoenicians down 
to our day; in fine, account of stock to be taken from time to 
time, to know how you stand. It is a labor to task the faculties 
of a man, — such problems of profit and loss, of interest, of tare 
and tret, and gauging of all kinds in it, as demand a universal 
knowledge. 

I have thought that Walden Pond would be a good place for 
business, not solely on account of the railroad and the ice trade ; 
it offers advantage which it may not be good policy to divulge ; 
it is a good post and a good foundation. No Neva marshes to be 
filled ; though you must everywhere build on piles of your own 
driving. It is said that a flood-tide, with a westerly wind, and 
ice in the Neva, would sweep St. Petersburg from the face of 
the earth. 

As this business was to be entered into without the usual 
capital, it may not be easy to conjecture where those means, 
that will still be indispensable to every such undertaking, were 
to be obtained. As for Clothing, to come at once to the prac- 
tical part of the question, perhaps we are led oftener by the love 
of novelty, and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, 
than by a true utility. Let him who has work to do recollect 
that the object of clothing is, first, to retain the vital heat^ and 
secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness, and he may 
judge how much of any necessary or important work may be 



44 WALDEN 

accomplished without adding" to his wardrobe. Kings and 
queens who wear a suit but once, though made by some tailor 
or dressmaker to their majesties, cannot know the comfort of 
wearing a suit that fits. They are no better than wooden horses 
to hang the clean clothes on. Every day our garments become 
more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of the 
wearer's character, until we hesitate to lay them aside, without 
such delay and medical appliances and some such solemnity even 
as our bo*dies. No man ever stood the lower in my estimation 
for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is 
greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean 
and unpatched, clothes than to have a sound conscience. But 
even if the rent is not mended, perhaps the worst vice betrayed 
is improvidence. I sometimes try my acquaintances by such 
tests as this ; — ^who could wear a patch, or two extra seams only, 
over the knee ? Most behave as if they believed that their pros- 
pects for life would be ruined if they should do it. It would 
be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with 
a broken pantaloon. Often if an accident happens to a gentle- 
man's legs, they can be mended ; but if a similar accident hap- 
pens to the legs of his pantaloons, there is no help for it ; for 
he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is respected. 
We know but few men, a gTeat many coats and breeches. Dress 
a scarecrow in your last shift, you standing shiftless by, who 
would not soonest salute the scarecrow ? Passing a cornfield the 
other day, close by a hat and coat on a stake, I recognized the 
owner of the farm. He was only a little more weather-beaten 
than when I saw him last. I have heard of a dog that barked 
at every stranger who approached his master's premises with 
clothes on, but was easily quieted hy a naked thief. It is an 
interesting question how far men would retain their relative 
rank if they were divested of their clothes. Could you, in such 
a case, tell surely of any company of civilized men, which 
belonged to the most respected class? When Madam Pfeiffer, 



ECONOMY 45 

in her adventurous travels round the world, from east to west, 
had got so near home as Asiatic Russia, she says that she felt 
the necessity of wearing other than a traveling dress, when she 
went to meet the authorities, for she "was now in a civilized 
country, where . . . people are judged of by their clothes." 
Even in our democratic New England towns the accidental pos- 
session of wealth, and its manifestation in dress and equipage 
alone, obtain for the possessor almost universal respect. But 
they who yield such respect, numerous as they are, are so far 
heathen, and need to have a missionary sent to them. Besides, 
clothes introduced sewing, a kind of work which you may call 
endless; a woman's dress, at least, is never done. 

A man who has at length found something to do will not need 
to get a new suit to do it in ; for him the old will do, that has 
lain dusty in the garret for an indeterminate period. Old shoes 
will serve a hero longer than they have served his valet, — if a 
hero ever has a valet, — bare feet are older than shoes, and he 
can make them do. Only they who go to soirees and legislative 
halls must have new coats, coats to change as often as the man 
changes in them. But if my jacket and trousers, my hat and 
shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do; will they not? 
Who ever saw his old clothes, — his old coat, actually worn out, 
resolved into its primitive elements, so that it was not a deed of 
charity to bestow it on some poor boy, by him perchance to 
be bestowed on some poorer still, or shall we say richer, who 
could do with less ? I say, beware of all enterprises that require 
new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there 
is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If 
you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. 
All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, 
or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a 
new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so 
conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel 
like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeo- 



46 WALDEN 

ing" new wine in old bottles. Our moulting- season, like that of 
the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon retires to soli- 
tary ponds to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its slough, and 
the caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry and 
expan^^ion; for clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal 
coil. Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false colors, 
and be inevitably cashiered at last by our own opinion, as well 
as that of mankind. 

We don garment after garment, as if we grew like exogenous 
plants by addition without. Our outside and often thin and fan- 
ciful clothes are our epidermis or false skin, which partakes not 
of our life, and may be stripped off here and there without fatal 
injury; our thicker garments, constantly worn, are our cellular 
integiTment, or cortex ; but our shirts are our liber or true bark, 
which cannot be removed without girdling and so destroying the 
man. I believe that all races at some seasons wear something- 
equivalent to the shirt. It is desirable that a man be clad so 
simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and 
that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly that, if 
an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk 
out the gate empty-handed without anxiety. While one thick 
garment is, for most purposes, as good as three thin ones, and 
cheap clothing can be obtained at prices really to suit customers ; 
while a thick coat can be bought for five dollars, which will last 
as many years, thick pantaloons for two dollars, cowhide boots 
for a dollar and a half a pair, a summer hat for a quarter of a 
dollar, and a winter cap for sixty-two and a half cents, or a 
better be made at home at a nominal cost, where is he so poor 
that, clad in such a suit, of his own earning, there will not be 
found wise men to do him reverence ? 

When I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress 
tells me gravely, "They do not make them so now," not empha- 
sizing the "They" at all, as if she quoted an authority as imper- 
sonal as the Fates, and I find it difficult to get made what I want, 



ECONOMY 47 

simply because she cannot believe that I mean what I say, that 
I am so rash. When I hear this oracular sentence, I am for a 
moment absorbed in thought, emphasizing to myself each word 
separately that I may come at the meaning of it, that I may find 
out by what degree of consanguinity They are related to me, and 
what authority they may have in an affair which affects me so 
nearly: and, finally, I am inclined to answer her with equal 
mystery, and without any more emphasis of the "they," — "It is 
true, they did not make them so recently, but they do now." Of 
what use this measuring of me if she does not measure my char- 
acter, but only the breadth of my shoulders, as it were a peg to 
hang the coat on ? We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, 
but Fashion . She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. 
The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler's cap, and all the 
monkeys in America do the same. I sometimes despair of get- 
ting anything quite simple and honest done in this world by the 
help of men. They would have to be passed through a powerful 
press first, to squeeze their old notions out of them, so that they 
would not soon get upon their legs again, and then there would 
be some one in the company with a maggot in his head, hatched 
from an egg deposited there nobody knows when, for not even 
fire kills these things, and you would have lost your labor. 
Nevertheless we will not forget that some Egyptian wheat was 
handed down to us by a mummy. 

On the whole, I think that it cannot be maintained that dress- 
ing has in this or any country risen to the dignity of an art. 
At present, men make shift to wear what they can get. Like 
shipwrecked sailors, they put on what they can find on the beach, 
and at a little distance, whether of space or time, laugh at each 
other's masquerade. Every generation laughs at the old fash- 
ions, but follows religiously the new. We are amused at behold- 
ing the costume of Henry VIII, or Queen Elizabeth, as much as 
if it was that of the King and Queen of the Cannibal Islands. 
All costume off a man is pitiful or grotesque. It is only the 



48 WALDEN 

serious eye peering from and the sincere life passed within it, 
which restrain laughter and consecrate the costume of any 
people. Let Harlequin be taken with a fit of colic and his trap- 
pings will have to serve that mood too. When the soldier is hit 
by a cannon ball, rags are as becoming as purple. 

The childish and savage taste of men and women for new 
patterns keeps how many shaking and squinting through kalei- 
doscopes that they may discover the particular figure which this 
generation requires toda}^ The manufacturers have learned that 
this taste is merely whimsical. Of two patterns which differ 
only by a few threads more or less of a particular color, the one 
will be sold readily, the other lie on the shelf, though it fre- 
quently happens that after the lapse of a season the latter 
becomes the most fashionable. Comparatively, tattooing is not 
the hideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous 
merely because the printing is skin-deep and unalterable. 

I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by 
which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives 
is becoming every day more like that of the English ; and it can- 
not be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or observed^ 
the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and hon- 
estly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be 
enriched. In the long run men hit only what they aim at. 
Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better 
aim at something- high. 

As for a Shelter, I will not deny that this is now a necessary 
of life, though there are instances of men having done without 
it for long periods in colder countries than this. Samuel Laing 
says that "The Laplander in his skin dress, and in a skin bag 
which he puts over his head and shoulders, will sleep night after 
night on the snow ... in a degree of cold which would extin- 
guish the life of one exposed to it in any woolen clothing." He 
has seen them asleep thus. Yet he adds, "They are not hardier 



ECONOMY 49 

than other people." But, probably, man did not live long on the 
earth without discovering the convenience which there is in a 
house, the domestic comforts, which pln-ase may have originally 
signified the satisfactions of the house more than of the family; 
though these must be extremely partial and occasional in tiiose 
climates where the house is associated in our thoughts with 
winter or the rainy season chiefly, and two thirds of the year, 
except for a parasol, is unnecessary. In our climate, in the 
summer, it was formerly almost solely a covering at night. In 
the Indian gazettes a wigwam was the symbol of a day's march, 
and a row of them cut or painted on the bark of a tree signified 
that so many times they had camped. Man was not made so 
large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his 
world, and wall in a space such as fitted him. He w^as at first 
bare and out of doors ; but though this was pleasant enough in 
serene and warm weather, by daylight, the rainy season and the 
winter, to say nothing of the torrid sun, would perhaps have 
nipped his race in the bud if he had not made haste to clothe 
himself with the shelter of a house. Adam and Eve, according 
to the fable, wore the bower before other clothes. IVIan wanted 
a home, a place of warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, 
then the warmth of the affections. 

We may imagine a time when, in the infancy of the human 
race, some enterprising mortal crept into a hollow in a rook for 
shelter. Every child begins the world again, to some extent, and 
loves to stay out doors, even in wet and cold. It plays house, 
as well as horse, having an instinct for it. Who does not remem- 
ber the interest with which when young he looked at shelving 
rocks, or any approach to a cave? It was the natural yearning 
of that portion of our most primitive ancestor which still sur- 
vived in us. From the cave we have advanced to roofs of palm 
leaves, of bark and boughs, of linen woven and stretched, of 
grass and straw, of boards and shingles, of stones and tiles. At 
last, we know not what it is to live in the open air, and our lives 



50 WALDEN 

are domestic in more senses than we think. From the hearth to 
the field is a g:i'eat distance. It would be well perhaps if we were 
to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction 
between us and the celestial bodies, if the poet did not speak so 
much from under a roof, or the saint dwell there so long. Birds 
do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in 
dovecots. 

However, if one designs to construct a dwelling house, it 
behooves him to exercise a little Yankee shrewdness, lest after 
all he find himself in a workhouse, a labyrinth without a clew, 
a museum, an almshouse, a prison, or a splendid mausoleum 
instead. Consider first how^ slight a shelter is absolutely nec- 
essary. I have seen Penobscot Indians, in this town, living in 
tents of thin cotton cloth, while the snow was nearly a foot deep 
around them, and I thought that they would be glad to have it 
deeper to keep out the wind. Formerly, when how to get my 
living honestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a 
question which vexed me even more than it does now, for unfor- 
tunately I am become somewhat callous, I used to see a large box 
by the railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the laborers 
locked up their tools at night, and it suggested to me that every 
man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, 
and, having bored a few auger holes in it, to admit the air at 
least, ^et into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the 
lid, and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul be free. This 
did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable alter- 
native. You could sit up as late as you pleased, and, whenever 
you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dog- 
ging you for rent. Many a man is harassed to death to pay the 
rent of a larger and more luxurious box who would not have 
frozen to death in such a box as this. I am far from jesting. 
Economy is a subject which admits of being treated with levity, 
but it cannot so be disposed of. A comfortable house for a rude 
aiul hardy race, that lived mostly out of doors, was once made 



ECONOMY 51 

here almost entirely of such materials as Nature furnished ready 
to their hands. Goodkin, who was superintendent of the Indians 
subject to the Massachusetts Colony, writing in 1674, says, "The 
best of their houses are covered very neatly, tight and warm, 
with barks of trees, slipped from their bodies at those seasons 
when the sap is up, and made into great flakes, with pressure 
of weighty timber, when they are green. . . . The meaner sort 
are covered with mats which they make of a kind of bulrush, and 
are also indifferently tight and Avarm, but not so good as the 
former. . . . Some I have seen, sixty or a hundred feet long 
and thirty feet broad. ... I have often lodged in their wig- 
wams, and found them as warm as the best English houses." 
He adds that they were commonly carpeted and lined within 
with well-wrought embroidered mats, and were furnished with 
various utensils. The Indians had advanced so far as to regu- 
late the effect of the wind by a mat suspended over the hole in 
the roof and moved by a string. Such a lodge was in the first 
instance constructed in a day or two at most, and taken down 
and put up in a few hours ; and every family owned one, or its 
apartment in one. 

In the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as 
the best, and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but 
I think that I speak within bounds when I say that, though the 
birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes, and 
the savages their wigwams, in modern civilized society not more 
than one half the families own a shelter. In the large towns 
and cities, where civilization especiallj'^ prevails, the number of 
those who own a shelter is a very small fraction of the whole. 
The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment of all, 
become indispensable summer and winter, which would buj^ a 
village of Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor 
as long as they live. I do not mean to insist here on the disad- 
vantage of hiring compared with owning, but it is evident that 
the savage owns his shelter because it costs so little, while the 



52 WALDEN 

civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot afford to 
own it; nor can he, in the loug run, any better afford to hire. 
But, answers one, by merely paying this tax the poor civilized 
man secures an abode which is a j^alace compared with the sav- 
age's. An annual rent of from twenty-five to a hundred dollars, 
these are the country rates, entitles him to the benefit of the 
improvements of centuries, spacious apartments, clean paint and 
paper, Rumford fireplace, back plastering, Venetian blinds, cop- 
per jDump, spring lock, a commodious cellar, and many other 
things. But how happens it that he who is said to enjoy these 
things is so commonly a poor civilized man, while the savage, 
who has them not, is rich as a savage? If it is asserted that 
civilization is a real advance in the condition of man, — and I 
think that it is, thoiigh only the wise improve their advantages, — 
it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without 
making them more costly ; and the cost of a thing is the amount 
of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for 
it, immediately or in the long run. An average house in this 
neighborhood costs perhaps eight hundred dollars, and to lay 
up this sum will take from ten to fifteen years of the laborer^s 
life, even if he is not encumbered with a family; — estimating 
the pecuniary value of every man's labor at one dollar a day, 
for if some receive more, others receive less ; — so that he must 
have spent more than half his life commonly before his wigwam 
will be earned. If we suppose him to pay a rent instead, this is 
but a doubtful choice of evils. Would the savage have been 
wise to exchange his wigwam for a palace on these terms? 
/ It may be guessed that I reduce almost the whole advantage 
/ of holding this superfluous property as a fund in store against 
the future, so far as the individual is concerned, mainly to the 
defraying of funeral expenses. But perhaps a man is not 
required to bury himself. Nevertheless this points to an impor- 
tant distinction between the civilized man and the savage; and, 
no doubt, they have designs on us for our benefit, in making the 



ECONOMY 53 

life of a civilized people an institution, in which the life of the 
individual is to a great extent absorbed, in order to preserve and 
perfect that of the race. But I wish to show at what a sacrifice 
this advantage is at present obtained, and to suggest that we 
may possibly so live as to secure all the advantage without suf- 
fering any of the disadvantage. What mean ye by saying that 
the poor ye have always with you, or that the fathers have eaten 
sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? 

"As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any 
more to use this proverb in Israel." 

"Behold all souls are mine ; as the soul of the father, so also 
the soul of the son is mine : the soul that sinneth it shall die." 

When I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Concord, who 
are at least as well off as the other classes, I find that for the 
most part they have been toiling twenty, thirty, or forty years, 
that they may become the real owners of their farms, which 
commonly they have inherited with encumbrances, or else bought 
with hired money, — and we may regard one third of that toil as 
the cost of their houses, — but commonly they have not paid for 
them yet. It is true, the encumbrances sometimes outweigh the 
value of the farm, so that the farm itself becomes one gi'eat 
encumbrance, and still a man is found to inherit it, being well 
acquainted with it, as he says. On applying to the assessors, I 
am surprised to learn that they cannot at once name a dozen 
in the town who own their farms free and clear. If you would 
know the history of these homesteads, inquire at the bank where 
they are mortgaged. The man who has actually paid for his 
farm with labor on it is so rare that every neighbor can point to 
him. I doubt if there are three such men in Concord. What has 
been said of the merchants, that a very large majority, even 
ninety-seven in a hundred, are sure to fail, is equally true of 
the farmers. With regard to the merchants, however, one of 
them says pertinently that a great part of their failures are not 
genuine pecuniary failures, but merely failures to fulfil their 



54 WALDEN 

engagements, because it is inconvenient ; that is, it is the moral 
character that breaks down. But this puts an infinitely worse 
face on the matter, and suggests, besides, that probably not even 
the other three succeed in saving their souls, but are perchance 
bankrupt in a worse sense than they who fail honestly. Bank- 
ruptcy and repudiation are the spring-boards from which much 
of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but the savage 
stands on the unelastic plank of famine. Yet the Middlesex 
Cattle Show goes off here with eclat annually, as if all the joints 
of the agricultural machine were suent. 

The farmer is endeavoring to solve the problem of a livelihood 
by a formula more complicated than the problem itself. To 
get his shoestrings he speculates in herds of cattle. With con- 
summate skill he has set his trap with a hairspring to catch 
comfort and independence, and then, as he turned away, got his 
own leg into it. This is the reason he is poor ; and for a similar 
reason we are all poor in respect to a thousand savage comforts, 
though surrounded by luxuries. As Chapman sings: — 

The false society of men — 

— for earthly greatness 
All heavenly comforts rarefies to air. 

And when the farmer has got his house, he may. not be the 
richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him. 
As I understand it, that was a valid objection urged by Momus 
against the house which Minerva made, that she "had not made 
it movable, by which means a bad neighborhood might be 
avoided"; ^nd it may still be urged, for our houses are such 
unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than 
lioused in them ; and the bad neighborhood to be avoided is our 
own scurvy selves. I know one or two families, at least, in this 
town, who, for nearly a generation, have been wishing to sell 
their houses in the outskirts and move into the village, but have 
not been able to accomplish it, and only death will set them free. 



ECONOMY 55 

Granted that the majority are able at last either to own or 
hire the modern house with all its improvements. While civ- 
ilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally im- 
proved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, 
but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings. And if the 
civilized man's pursuits are no worthiei than^ the savage's, if 
he is employed the greater part of his life in obtaining gross 
necessaries and comforts merely, why should we have a better 
dwelling than the former f 

But how do the poor minority fare? Perhaps it will be found 
that just in proportion as some have been placed in outward 
circumstances above the savage, others have been degraded 
below him. The luxury of one class is counterbalanced by the 
indigence of another. On the one side is the palace, on the other 
are the almshouse and "silent poor." The myriads who built 
the pyramids to be the tombs of the Pharaohs were fed on 
garlic, and it may be were not decently buried themselves. The 
mason who finishes the cornice of the palace returns at night 
perchance to a hut not so good as a wig-wam. It is a mistake to 
suppose that, in a country where the usual evidences of civiliza- 
tion exist, the condition of a very large body of the inhabitants 
may not be as degi-aded as that of savages. I refer to the 
degraded poor, not now to the degraded rich. To know this I 
should not need to look farther than to the shanties which 
everywhere border our railroads, that last improvement in civ- 
ilization; where I see in my daily walks human beings living in 
sties, and all winter with an open door, for the sake of light, 
without any visible, often imaginable, wood pile, and the forms 
of both old and young are permanently contracted by the long 
habit of shrinking from cold and misery, and the development 
of all their limbs and faculties is checked. It certainly is fair 
to look at that class by whose labor the works which distinguish 
this generation are accomplished. Such, too, to a greater or less 
extent, is the condition of the operatives of every denomination 



56 WALDEN 

in England, which is the great workhouse of the world. Or I 
could refer you to Ireland, which is marked as one of the white 
or enlightened spots on the map. Contrast the physical condi- 
tion of the Irish with that of the North American Indian, or the 
South Sea Islander, or any other savage race before it was 
degraded by contact with the civilized man. Yet I have no 
doubt that that people's rulers are as wise as the average of 
civilized rulers. Their condition only i3roves what squalidness 
may consist with civilization. I hardly need refer now to the 
laborers of our Southern States who produce the staple exports 
of this country, and are themselves a staple production of the 
South. But to confine myself to those who are said to be in 
moderate circumstances. 

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, 
and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because 
they think, that they must have such a one as their neighbors 
have. As if one were to wear any sort of coat which the tailor 
might cut out for him, or, gradually leaving off palmleaf hat or 
cap of woodchuek skin, comjDlain of hard times because he 
could not afford to buy him a crown ! It is possible to invent a 
house still more convenient and luxurious than we have, which 
yet all would admit that man could not afford to pay for. Shall 
we always study to obtain more of these things, and not some-, 
times to be content with less? Shall the resjDectable citizen 
thus gravely teach, by precept and example, the necessity of 
the young man's providing a certain number of superfluous 
glowshoes, and umbrellas, and empty guest chambers for empty 
guests, before he dies? Why should not our furniture be as 
simple as the Arab's or the Indian's? When I think of the 
benefactors of the race, whom we have apotheosized as mes- 
sengers from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not 
see in my mind any retinue at their heels, any car-load of 
fashionable furniture. Or what if I were to allow — would it 
not be a singular allowance? — that our furniture should be more 



ECONOMY 57 

complex than the Arab's, in proportion as we are morally and 
intellectually his superiors! At present our houses are clut- 
tered and defiled with it, and a good housewife would sweep out 
the greater part into the dust hole, and not leave her morning's 
work undone. Morning work ! By the blushes of Aurora and 
the music of Memnon, what should be man's morning work in 
this world? I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I 
was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when 
the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw 
them out the window in disgust. How, then, could I have a 
furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no 
dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken 
ground. 

It is the luxurious and dissipated who set the fashions which 
the herd so diligently follow. The traveler who stops at the best 
houses, so called, soon discovers this, for the publicans presume 
him to be a Sardanapalus, and if he resigned himself to their 
tender mercies he would soon be completely emasculated. I think 
that in the railroad car we are inclined to spend more on luxury 
than on safety and convenience, and it threatens without attain- 
ing these to become no better than a modern drawing-room, with 
its divans, and ottomans, and sunshades, and a hundred other 
Oriental things, which we are taking west with us, invented for 
the ladies of the harem and the effeminate natives of the Celes- 
tial Empire, which Jonathan should be ashamed to know the 
names of. I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to 
myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather 
lide on earth in an ox cart with a free circulation, than go to 
heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a 
malaria all the way. 

The very simplicity and nakedness of man's life in the primi- 
tive ages imply this advantage at least, that they left him still 
but a sojourner in nature. "When he was refreshed with food 
and sleep, he contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it 



58 WALDEN 

were, in a tent in this world, and was either threading the 
valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain tops. 
But lo ! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who 
independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become 
a farmer: and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a house- 
keeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled 
down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Chris- 
tianity merely as an improved method of agri-culture. We have 
built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family 
tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle 
to free himself from this condition^ but the effect of our art is 
merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state 
to be forgotten. There is actually no place in this village for 
a work of fine art, if any had come down to us, to stand, for 
our lives, our houses and streets, furnish no proper pedestal 
for it. There is not a nail to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to 
receive the bust of a hero or a saint. When I consider how our 
houses are built and paid for, or not paid for, and their internal 
economy managed and sustained, I wonder that the floor does 
not give way under the visitor while he is admiring the gew- 
gaws upon the mantel-piece, and let him through into the cellar, 
to some solid and honest though earthy foundation. I cannot 
but jDcrceive that this so-called rich and refined life is a thing- 
jumped at, and I do not get on in the enjoyment of the fine arts 
which adorn it, my attention being wholly occupied with the 
jump; for I remember that the greatest genuine leap, due to 
human muscles alone, on record is that of certain wandering- 
Arabs, who are said to have cleared twenty-five feet on level 
ground. Without factitious support, man is sure to come to 
earth again beyond that distance. The first question which I am 
tempted to put to the proprietor of such great impropriety is. 
Who bolsters you? Are you one of the ninety-seven who fail, 
or the three who succeed? Answer me these questions, and then 
perhaps I may look at your baubles and find them ornamental. 



ECONOMY 59 

The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before 
we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must 
be stripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful 
housekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation: 
now, a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, 
where there is no house and no housekeeper. 

Old Johnson, in his "Wonder- Working Providence," speak- 
ing of the first settlers of this town, with whom he was con- 
temporary, tells us that "they burrow themselves in the earth 
for their first shelter under some hillside, and, casting the soil 
aloft upon timber, they make a smoky fire against the earth, 
at the highest side." They did not "provide them houses," says 
he, "till the earth, by the Lord's blessing, brought forth bread 
to feed them," and the first j^ear's crop was so light that "they 
were forced to cut their bread very thin for a long season." 
The secretary of the Province of New Netherland, writing in 
Dutch, in 1650, for the information of those who wished to 
take up land there, states more particularly, that "those in New 
Netherland, and especially in New England, who have no means 
to build farm houses at first according to their wishes, dig a 
square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, six or seven feet deep, 
as long and as broad as they think proper, case the 'earth inside 
with w^ood all round the wall, and line the wood with the bark 
of trees or something else to prevent the caving in of the earth ; 
floor this cellar with plank, and wainscot it overhead for a ceil- 
ing, raise a roof of spars clear up, and cover the sjDars with 
bark or green sods, so that they can live dry and warm in these 
houses with their entire families for two, three, and four years, 
it being understood that partitions are run through those cellars, 
which are adapted to the size of the family. The wealthy and 
principal men in New England, in the beginning of the colonies, 
commenced their first dwelling houses in this fashion for two 
reasons : firstly, in order not to waste time in building, and not 
to want food the next season ; secondly, in order not to discour- 



60 WALDEN 

age poor laboring people whom they brought over in numbers 
from Fatherland. In the course of three or four years, when 
the country became adapted to agriculture, they built themselves 
handsome houses, spending on them several thousands." 

In this course which our ancestors took there was a show of 
prudence at least, as if their principle were to satisfy the more 
pressing wants first. But are the more pressing w^ants satisfied 
now? When I think of acquiring for myself one of our luxu- 
rious dwellings, I am deterred, for, so to speak, the country is 
not yet adapted to human culture, and we are still forced to cut 
our spiritual bread far thinner than our forefathers did their 
wheaten. Not that all architectural ornament is to be neglected 
even in the rudest period ; but let our houses first be lined with 
beauty, where they come in contact with our lives, like the tene- 
ment of the shellfish, and not overlaid with it. But, alas ! I have 
been inside one or two of them, and know what they are lined 
with. 

Though we are not so degenerate but that we might possibly 
live in a cave or a wigwam or wear skins today, it certainly is 
better to accept the advantages, though so dearly bought, which 
the invention and industry of mankind offer. In such a neigh- 
borhood as this, boards and shingles, lime and bricks, are cheaper 
and more easily obtained than suitable caves, or whole logs, or 
bark in sufficient quantities, or even well-tempered clay or flat 
stones. I speak understandingly on this subject, for I have 
made myself acquainted with it both theoretically and practi- 
cally. With a little more wit we might use these materials so 
as to become richer than the richest now are, and make our 
civilization a blessing. The civilized man is a more experienced 
and wiser savage. But to make haste to my own experiment. 

Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went 
down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended 
to build my house, and began to cut down some tall arrowy 



ECONOMY 61 

white pines, still in their youth, for timber. It is difficult to 
begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous 
course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in 
your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold 
on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it 
sharper than I received it. It was a pleasant hillside where I 
worked, covered with pine woods, through which I looked out 
on the pond, and a small open field in the woods where pines 
and hickories were springing up. The ice in the pond was not 
yet dissolved, though there were some open spaces, and it was 
all dark colored and saturated with water. There were some 
slight flurries of snow during the days that I worked there ; but 
for the most part when I came out on to the railroad, on my 
way home, its yellow sand heap stretched away gleaming in the 
hazy atmosphere, and the rails shone in the spring sun, and I 
heard the lark and pewee and other birds already come to com- 
mence another year with us. They were plea3ant spring days, 
in which the winter of man's discontent was thawing as well as 
the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch 
itself. One day, when my axe had come off and I had cut a 
green hickory for a wedge, driving it with a stone, and had 
placed the whole to soak in a pond hole in order to swell the 
wood, I saw a striped snake run into the water, and he lay on 
the bottom, apparently without inconvenience, as long as ] 
stayed there, or more than a quarter of an hour; perhaps be- 
cause he had not yet fairly come out of the torpid state. It 
appeared to me that for a like reason men remain in their 
present low and primitive condition; but if they should feel 
the influence of the spring of sjDrings arousing them, they would 
of necessity rise to a higher and more ethereal life. I had pre- 
viously seen the snakes in frosty mornings in my path with 
portions of their bodies still numb and inflexible, waiting for 
the sun to thaw them. On the 1st of April it rained and melted 
the ice, and in the early part of the day, which was very foggy, 



52 WALDEN 

I heard a stray goose groping about over the pond and cackling 
as if lost, or like the spirit of the fog. 

So I went on for some days cutting and hewing timber, 
and also studs and rafters, all with my narrow axe, not hav- 
ing many communicable or scholar-like thoughts, singing to 

myself, — 

Men say they know many things; 

But lo! they have taken wings, 

The arts and sciences. 

And a thousand appliances ; 

The wind that blows 

Is all that anybody knows. 

I hewed the main timbers six inches square, most of the studs 
on two sides only, and the rafters and floor timbers on one side, 
leaving the rest of the bark on, so that they were just as straight 
and much stronger than sawed ones. Each stick was carefully 
mortised or tenoned by its stump, for I had borrowed other 
tools by this time. My days in the woods were not very long 
ones ; yet I usually carried my dinner of bread and butter, and 
read the newspaper in which it was wrapped, at noon, sitting 
amid the green pine boughs which I had cut off, and to my 
bread was imparted some of their fragrance, for my hands were 
covered with a thick coat of pitch. Before I had done I was 
more the friend than the foe of the pine tree, though I had cut 
down some of them, having becoming better acquainted with it. 
Sometimes a rambler in the wood was attracted by the sound of 
my axe, and we chatted pleasantly over the chips which I had 
made. 

By the middle of April, for I made no haste in my work, 
but rather made the most of it, my house was framed and ready 
for the raising. I had already bought the shanty of James 
Collins, an Irishman who worked on the Fitchburg Railroad, 
for boards. James Collins' shanty was considered an uncom- 
monly fine one. When T called to see it he was not at home. 



ECONOMY 63 

I walked about the outside, at first unobserved from within, the 
window was so deep and high. It was of small dimensions, with 
a peaked cottage roof, and not much else to be seen, the dirt 
being raised five feet all around as if it were a compost heap. 
The roof was the soundest part, though a good deal warped 
and made brittle by the sun. Door-sill there was none, but a 
perennial passage for the hens under the door board. Mrs. C. 
came to the door and asked me to view it from the inside. The 
hens were driven in by my approach. It was dark, and had a 
dirt floor for the most part, dank, clammy, and aguish, only 
here a board and there a board which would not bear removal. 
She lighted a lamp to show me the inside of the roof and the 
walls, and also that the board floor extended under the bed, 
warning me not to step into the cellar, a sort of dust hole two 
feet deep. In her own words, they were "good boards overhead, 
good boards all around, and a good window," — of two whole 
squares originally, only the cat had passed out that way lately. 
There was a stove, a bed, and a place to sit, an infant in the 
house where it was born, a silk parasol, a gilt-framed looking- 
glass, and a patent new coffee mill nailed to an oak sapling, all 
told. The bargain was soon completed, for James had in the 
meanwhile returned. I to pay four dollars and twenty-five 
cents tonight, he to vacate at five tomorrow morning, selling 
to nobody else meanwhile : I to take possession at six. It were 
well, he said, to be there early, and anticipate certain indistinct 
but wholly unjust claims, on the score of ground rent and fuel. 
This he assured me was the onlj^ encumbrance. At six I passed 
him and his family on the road. One large bundle held their 
all, — bed, coffee mill, looking-glass, hens, — all but the cat, she 
took to the woods and became a wild cat, and, as I learned 
afterward, trod in a trap set for woodehucks, and so became a 
dead cat at last. 

I took down this dwelling the same morning, drawing the 
nails, and removed it to the pond side by small cartloads, 



64 WALDEN 

spreading the boards on the grass there to bleach and warp 
back again in the sun. One early thrush gave me a note or two 
as I drove along the woodland path. I was informed treacher- 
ously by a young Patrick that neighbor Seeley, an Irishman, 
in the intervals of the carting, transferred the still tolerable, 
straight, and drivable nails, staples, and spikes to his pocket, 
and then stood when I came back to pass the time of day, and 
look freshly up, unconcerned with spring thoughts, at the 
devastation; there being a dearth of work, as he said. He 
was there to represent spectatordom, and help make this 
seemingly insignificant event one with the removal of the gods 
of Troy. 

I dug my cellar in the side of a hill sloping to the south, 
where a woodchuck had formerly dug his burrow, doAvn through 
sumach and blackberry roots, and the lowest stain of vegeta- 
tion, six feet square by seven deep, to a fine sand where potatoes 
would not freeze in any winter. The sides were left shelving, 
and not stoned; but the sun having never shone on them, the 
sand still keeps its place. It was but two hours' work. I took 
particular pleasure in this breaking of gi^ound, for in almost 
all latitudes men dig into the earth for an equable temjDerature. 
Under the most splendid house in the city is still to be found 
the cellar where they store their roots as of old, and long after 
the superstructure has disappeared posterity remark its dent 
in the earth. The house is still but a sort of porch at the 
entrance of a burrow. 

At length, in the beginning of May, with the help of some of 
my acquaintances, rather to improve so good an occasion for 
neighborliness than from any necessity, I set up the frame of 
my house. No man was ever more honored in the character 
of his raisers than I. They are destined, I trust, to assist at 
the raising of loftier structures one day. I began to occupy 
my house on the 4th of July, as soon as it was boarded and 
roofed, for the boards were carefully feather-edged and lapped, 



ECONOMY 65 

so tliat it was perfectly impervious to rain; but before board- 
ing I laid the foundation of a chimney at one end, bringing 
two cart-loads of stones up the hill from the pond in my arms. 
I built the chimney after my hoeing in the fall, before a lire 
became necessary for warmth, doing my cooking in the mean- 
while out of doors on the ground, early in the morning: which 
mode I still think is in some respects more convenient and 
agreeable than the usual one. When it stormed before my 
bread was baked, I fixed a few boards over the fire, and sat 
under them to watch my loaf, and passed some pleasant hours 
in that way. In those days, when my hands were much em- 
ployed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which 
lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as 
much entertainment, in fact answered the same purpose, as the 
Iliad. 

It would be worth the while to build still more deliberately 
than I did, considering, for instance, what foundation a door, 
a window, a cellar, a garret, have in the nature of man, and 
perchance never raising any superstructure until we found a 
better reason for it than our temporal necessities even. There 
is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house 
that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but 
if men constructed their dwellings Avith their own hands, and 
provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly 
enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as 
birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! 
we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests 
which other birds have built, and cheer no traveler with their 
chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the 
pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does archi- 
tecture amount to in the experience of the mass of men ? I never 
in all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and 
natural an occupation as building his house. We belong to the 



66 WALDEN 

community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of 
a man: it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the 
farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object 
does it finally serve ? No doubt another may also think for me ; 
but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the 
exclusion of my thinking for myself. 

True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have 
heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making archi- 
tectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence 
a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well per- 
haps from his point of view, but only a little better than the 
common dilettantism. A sentimental reformer in architecture, 
he began at the cornice, not at the foundation. It was only 
how to put a core of truth within the ornaments, that every 
sugar plum in fact might have an almond or caraway seed in 
it, — though I hold that almonds are most wholesome without 
the sugar, — and not how the inhabitant, the indweller, might 
build truly within and without, and let the ornaments take care 
of themselves. What reasonable man ever supposed that orna- 
ments were something outward and in the skin merely, — that 
the tortoise got his spotted shell, or the shellfish its mother-o'- 
pearl tints, by such a contract as the inhabitants of Broadway 
their Trinity Church ? But a man has no more to do with the 
style of architecture of liis house than a tortoise with that of 
its shell : nor need the soldier be so idle as to try to paint the 
precise color of his virtue on his standard. The enemy will find 
it out. He may turn }>ale when the trial comes. This man 
seemed to me to lean over the cornice, and timidly whisper his 
half truth to the rude occupants, who really knew it better than 
he. What of architectural beauty I now see, I know has grad- 
ually grown from within outward, out of the necessities and 
character of the indweller, who is the only builder, — out of 
some unconscious truthfulness, and nobleness, without ever a 
thought for the appearance ; and whatever additional beauty of 



ECONOMY 67 

this kind is destined to be produced will be preceded by a like 
unconscious beauty of life. The most interesting dwellings in 
this country, as the painter knows, are the most unpretending-, 
humble log huts and cottages of the poor commonly; it is the 
life of the inhabitants whose shells they are, and not any pecu- 
liarity in their surfaces merely, which makes them picturesque ; 
and equally interesting will be the citizen's suburban box, when 
his life shall be as simple and as agreeable to the imagination, 
and there is as little straining after effect in the style of his 
dwelling, A great proportion of architectural ornaments are 
literally hollow, and a September gale would strip them off, like 
borrowed plumes, without injury to the substantials. They can 
do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the 
cellar. What if an equal ado were made about the ornaments of 
style in literature, and the architects of our Bibles spent as much 
time about their cornices as the architects of our churches do? 
So are made the belles-lettres and the beaux-arts and their pro- 
fessors. Much as it concerns a man, forsooth, how a few sticks 
are slanted over him or under him, and what colors are daubed 
upon his box. It would signify somewhat, if, in any earnest 
sense, he slanted them and daubed it; but the spirit having 
departed out of the tenant, it is of a piece with constructing his 
own coffin, — the architecture of the gTave, and "carpenter" is 
but another name for "coffin-maker." One man says, in his 
despair or indifference to life, take up a handful of the earth at 
your feet, and paint your house that color. Is he thinking of 
his last and narrow house? Toss up a copper for it as well. 
What an abundance of leisure he must have ! Why do you take 
up a handful of the dirt? Better paint your house your own 
complexion; let it turn pale or blush for you. An enterprise 
to improve the style of cottage architecture! When you have 
got my ornaments ready I will wear them. 

Before winter I built a chimney, and shingled the sides of 
5 my house, which were already impervious to rain, with imper- 



■63 WALDEN 

feet and sappy shingles made of the first slice of the log, Avhose 
edges I was obliged to straighten with a plane. 

I have thus a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet 
wide by fifteen long, and eight-feet posts, with a garret and 
a closet, a large window on each side, two trap doors, one door 
at the end, and a brick fireplace opposite. The exact cost of 
my house, paying the usual price for such materials as I used, 
but not counting the work, all of which was done by myself, 
was as follows ; and I give the details because very few are able 
to tell exactly what their houses cost, and fewer still, if any, 
the separate cost of the various materials which compose them : 



"{ 



»".* «■«■[ ""it"" 

Refuse shingles for roof and sides 4.00 

Laths 1.25 

Two second-hand windows with glass. . . . 2.43 

One thousand old brick 4.00 

Two casks of lime 2.40 That was high. 

Hair 31 J ^^'^ f^^ ^ 

[ needed. 

Mantel-tree iron 15 

Nails 3.90 

Hinges and screws 14 

Latch 10 

Chalk 01 ^■ 

j I carried a good 
Transportation ^-^0 jpart on my back. 

In all $28,121/0 

These are all the materials excepting the timber, stones, and 
sand, which I claimed by squatter's right. I have also a small 
woodshed adjoining, made chiefly of the stuff which was left 
after building the house. 

I intend to build me a house which will surpass any on 
the main street in Concord in gi-andeur and luxury, as soon 



ECONOMY 69' 

as it pleases me as much and will cost me no more than my 
present one. 

I thus found that the student who wishes for a shelter can 
obtain one for a lifetime at an expense not greater than the 
rent which he now pays annually. If I seem to boast more 
than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather 
than for myself; and my shortcomings and inconsistencies do 
not affect the truth of my statement. Notwithstanding much 
cant and hypocrisy, — chaff which I find it difficult to separate 
from my wheat, but for which I am as sorry as any man, — I 
will breathe freely and stretch myself in this respect, it is 
such a relief to both the moral and physical system ; and I am 
resolved that I will not through humility become the deviPs 
attorney. I will endeavor to speak a good word for the truth. 
At Cambridge College the mere rent of a student's room, which 
is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars each year, 
though the corporation had the advantage of building thirty- 
two side by side and under one roof, and the occupant suffers 
the inconvenience of many and noisy neighbors, and perhaps 
a residence in the fourth story. I cannot but think that if we 
had more true wisdom in these respects, not only less education 
would be needed, because, forsooth, more would already have 
been acquired, but the pecuniary expense of getting an educa- 
tion would in a great measure vanish. Those conveniences which 
the student requires at Cambridge or elsewhere cost him or 
somebody else ten times as great a sacrifice of life as they 
would with proper management on both sides. Those things for 
which the most money is demanded are never the things which 
the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important 
item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education 
which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his 
contemporaries no charge is made. The mode of founding a 
college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and 
cents, and then following blindly the principles of a division 



70 WALDEN 

of labor to its extreme, a principle which should never be fol- 
lowed but with circumspection, — to call in a contractor who 
makes this a subject of speculation, and he employs Irishmen 
or other operatives actually to lay the foundations, while the 
students that are to be are said to be fitting themselves for it; 
and for these oversights successive generations have to pay. I 
think that it would be better than this, for the students, or those 
who desire to be benefited by it, even to lay the foundation 
themselves. The student who secures his coveted leisure and 
retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to 
man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding 
himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful. 
^'But," says one, "you do not mean that the students should go 
to work with their hands instead of their heads'?" I do not 
mean that exactly, but I mean something which he might think 
a good deal like that; I mean that they should not play life, 
or study it merely, while the community supports them at this 
expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. 
How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying 
the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their 
minds as much as mathematics. If I wished a boy to know- 
something about the arts and sciences, for instance, I would not 
pursue the common course, which is merely to send him into 
the neighborhood of some professor, where anything is pro- 
fessed and practiced but the art of life; — to survey the world 
through a telescope or a microscope, and never with his natural 
eye; to study chemistry, and not learn how his bread is made, 
or mechanics, and not learn how it is earned; to discover new 
satellites to Neptune, and not detect the motes in his eyes, or 
to what vagabond he is a satellite himself; or to be devoured 
by the monsters that swarm all around him, while contemplat- 
ing the monsters in a drop of vinegar. Which would have 
advanred the most at the end of a month, — the boy who had 
made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and 



ECONOMY 71 



smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this, 
the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the 
Institution in the meanwhile, and had received a Rogers' pen- 
knife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his 
fingers'? ... To my astonishment I was informed on leaving 
college that I had studied navigation ! — why, if I had taken one 
turn down the harbor I should have known more about it. Even 
the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, 
while that economy of living which is synonymous with philos- 
ophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The conse- 
quence is that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and 
Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably. 

As with our colleges, so with a hundred "modern improve- 
ments" : there is an illusion about them ; there is not ahvays a 
positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest 
to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding invest- 
ments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, 
which distract our attention from serious things. They are but 
improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was 
already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston 
or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic 
telegrai3h from Maine to Texas ; but Maine and Texas, it may 
be, have nothing important to communicate. Either is in such 
a predicament as the man who was earnest to be introduced to a 
distinguished deaf woman, but when he was presented, and one 
end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had nothing to 
say. As if the main object Avere to talk fast and not to talk 
sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring 
the old world some weeks nearer to the new ; but perchance the 
first news that will leak through into the broad, flapi^ing Ameri- 
can ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping 
cough. After all, the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute 
does not carry the most important messages ; he is not an evan- 
gelist, nor does he come round eating locusts and wild honev. 



72 WALDEN 

I doubt if Flying Childers ever carried a peck of corn to 
mill. 

One says to me, "I wonder that you do not lay up money; 
you love to travel ; you might take the ears and go to Fitchburg- 
today and see the country." But I am wiser than that. I have 
learned that the swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot. I say 
to my friend, Suppose we try who will get there first. The dis- 
tance is thirty miles; the fare ninety cents. That is almost a 
day's wages. I remember when wages Avere sixty cents a day 
for laborers on this very road. Well, I start now on foot, and 
get there before night ; I have traveled at that rate by the week 
together. You will in the meanwhile have earned your fare, 
and arrive there sometime tomorrow, or possibly this evening, 
if you are lucky enough to get a job in season. Instead of going 
to Fitchburg, you will be working here the greater part of the 
day. And so, if the railroad reached round the world, I think 
that I should keep ahead of you ; and as for seeing the country 
and getting experience of that kind, I should have to cut your 
acquaintance altogether. 

Such is the universal law, which no man can ever outwit, and 
with regard to the railroad even Ave may say it is as broad as it 
is long. To make a railroad round the world available to all 
mankind is equivalent to grading the whole surface of the planet. 
Men have an indistinct notion that if they keep up this activitj^ 
of joint stocks and spades long enough all will at length ride 
somewhere, in next to no time, and for nothing; but though a 
crowd rushes to the depot, and the conductor shouts "All 
aboard!" when the smoke is bloAvn away and the vapor con- 
densed, it will be perceived that a few are riding, but the rest 
are run over, — and it will be called, and will be, "A melancholy 
accident." No doubt they can ride at last who shall have earned 
their fare, that is, if they survive so long, but they will probably 
have lost their elasticity and desire to travel by that time. This 
spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order 



ECONOMY 73 

to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part 
of it, reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make 
a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live 
the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once. 
''What!" exclaim a million Irishmen starting up from all the 
shanties in the land, "is not this railroad which we have built a 
good thing?" Yes, I answer, comparatively good, that is, you 
might have done worse ; but I wish, as you are brothers of mine, 
that you could have spent your time better than digging in this 
dirt. 

Before I finished my house, wishing to earn ten or twelve 
dollars by some honest and agreeable method, in order to meet 
my unusual expenses, I planted about two acres and a half of 
light and sandy soil near it chiefly with beans, but also a small 
part with i3otatoes, corn, peas, and turnips. The whole lot 
contains eleven acres, mostly growing up to pines and hickories, 
and was sold the preceding season for eight dollars and eight 
cents an acre. One farmer said that it was "good for nothing 
but to raise cheeping squirrels on." I put no manure whatever 
on this land, not being the owner, but merely a squatter, and not 
expecting to cultivate so much again, and I did not quite hoe it 
all once. I got out several cords of stumps in plowing, which 
supplied me with fuel for a long time, and left small circles of 
virgin mold, easily distinguishable through the summer by the 
greater luxuriance of the beans there. The dead and for the 
most part unmerchantable wood behind my house, and the drift- 
wood from the pond, have supiDlied the remainder of my fuel. 
I was obliged to hire a team and a man for the plowing, though 
I held the plow myself. My farm outgoes for the first season 
were, for implements, seed, work, etc., $14,721/2. The seed corn 
was given me. This never costs anything to speak of, unless 
you plant more than enough. I got twelve bushels of beans, 
and eighteen bushels of potatoes, besides some peas and sweet 



74 WALDEN 

corn. The yellow corn and turnips were too late to come t( 
anything. My wliole income from the farm was 

$23.44 
Deducting the outgoes * 14.721/^ 



There are left $ 8.71% 

besides produce consumed and on hand at the time this estimate 
was made of the value of $4.50, — the amount on hand much 
more than balancing a little grass which I did not raise. All 
things considered, that is, considering the importance of a man's 
soul and of today, notwithstanding the short time occupied by 
my experiment, nay, partly even because of its transient char- 
acter, I believe that that was doing better than any farmer in 
Concord did that year. 

The next year I did better still, for I spaded up all the land 
which I required, about a third of an acre, and I learned from 
the experience of both years, not being in the least awed by 
many celebrated works on husbandry, Arthur Young among 
the rest, that if one would live simplj^ and eat only the crop 
which he raised, and raise no more than he ate, and not exchange 
it for an insufficient quantity of more luxurious and expensive 
things, he would need to cultivate only a few rods of ground, 
and that it would be cheaper to spade up that than to use oxen 
to plow it, and to select a fresh spot from time to time than 
to manure the old, and he could do all his necessary farm work 
as it were with his left hand at odd hours in the summer; and 
thus he Avould not be tied to an ox, or horse, or cow, or pig, as 
at present. I desire to speak impartially on this point, and as 
one not interested in the success or failure of the present eco- 
nomical and social arrangements. I was more independent than 
any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or 
farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very 
crooked one, every moment. Besides being better off than they 



ECONOMY 75 

already, if my house had been burned or my crops had failed, I 
should have been nearly as well off as before. 

I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of 
herds as herds are the keepers of men, the former are so much 
the freer. Men and oxen exchange work; but, if we consider 
necessary work only, the oxen will be seen to have greatly the 
advantage, their farm is so much the larger. Man does some of 
his part of the exchange work in his six weeks of haying, and it 
is no boy's play. Certainly no nation that lived simply in all 
respects, that is, no nation of philosophers, would commit so 
great a blunder as to use the labor of animals. True, there never 
was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor 
am I certain it is desirable that there should be. However, I 
should never have broken a horse or bull and taken him to board 
for any work he might do for me, for fear I should become a 
horseman or a herdsman merely; and if society seems to be the 
gainer by so doing, are we certain that what is one man's gain is 
not another's loss, and that the stable-boy has equal cause with 
his master to be satisfied? Granted that some public works 
would not have been constructed without this aid, and let man 
share the glory of such with the ox and horse; does it follow 
that he could not have accomplished works yet more worthy of 
himself in that case ? When men begin to do, not merely unnec- 
essary or artistic, but luxurious and idle work, with their assist- 
ance, it is inevitable that a few do all the exchange work with 
the oxen, or, in other words, become the slaves of the strongest. 
Man thus not only works for the animal within him, but, for a 
symbol of this, he works for the animal without him. Though 
we have many substantial houses of brick or stone, the pros- 
perity of the farmer is still measured by the degree to which 
the barn overshadows the house. This town is said to have the 
largest houses for oxen, cows, and horses hereabouts, and it is 
not behindhand in its public buildings; but there are very few 
halls for free worship or free speech in this county. It should 



76 WALDEN 

not be by their architecture, but why not even by their power 
of abstract thought, that nations should seek to commemorate 
themselves? How much more admirable the Bhagvat-Geeta 
than all the ruins of the East! Towers and temples are the 
luxuiy of princes. A simple and independent mind does not 
toil at the bidding of any prince. Genius is not a retainer to 
any emperor, nor is its material silver, or gold, or marble, 
except to a trifling extent. To what end, pray, is so much stone 
hammered? In Arcadia, when I was there, I did not see any 
hammering stone. Nations are possessed with an insane ambi- 
tion to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount 
of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken 
to smooth and polish their manners? One jDiece of good sense 
would be more memorable than a monument as high as the 
moon. I love better to see stones in place. The grandeur of 
Thebes was a vulgar grandeur. More sensible is a rod of stone 
wall that bounds an honest man's field than a hundred-gated 
Thebes that has wandered farther from the true end of life. 
The religion and civilization which are barbaric and heathenish 
build splendid temples; but what you might call Christianity 
does not. Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward its 
tomb only. It buries itself alive. As for the Pyramids, there is 
nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so manj^ 
men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives con- 
structing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have 
been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then 
given his body to the dogs. I might possibly invent some 
excuse for them and him, but I have no time for it. As for the 
religion and love of art of the builders, it is much the same all 
the world over, whether the building be an Egyptian temple or 
the United States Banks. It costs more than it comes to. The 
mainspring is vanity, assisted by the love of garlic and bread 
and butter. Mr. Balcom, a promising young architect, designs 
it on the back of his Vitruvius, with hard pencil and ruler, and 



ECONOMY 77 

the job is let out to Dobson & Sons, stonecutters. When the 
thirty centuries begin to look down on it, mankind begin to look 
up at it. As for your high towers and monuments, there was a 
crazy fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through to 
China, and he got so far that, as he said, he heard the Chinese 
pots and kettles rattle ; but I think that I shall not go out of my 
way to admire the hole which he made. Many are concerned 
about the monuments of the West and East, — to know who built 
them. For my part, I should like to know who in those days 
did not build them, — who were above such trifling. But to 
proceed with my statistic*. 

By surveying, carj^entry, and day-labor of various other 
kinds in the village in the meanwhile, for I have as many trades 
as fingers, I had earned $13.34. The expense of food for eight 
months, namely, from July 4th to March 1st, the time when 
these estimates were made, though I lived there more than two 
years, — not counting potatoes, a little green corn, and some peas, 
which I had raised, nor considering the value of what was on 
hand at the last date, was 

Rice $1,731/2 

Molasses 1.73 Cheapest form of the saccharine. 

Rye meal 1.04% 

Indian meal 99% Cheaper than rye. 

Pork 22 

f Costs more than Indian meal/ 
1 both money and trouble. 



Flour 88 






Sugar .80 

Lard 65 

Apples 25 

Dried apple . 22 

Sweet potatoes 10 

One pumpkin 06 

One watermelon 02 

Salt 03 J t- 

Yes, I did eat $8.74, all told ; but I should not thus unblush- 
ingiy publish my gaiilt, if I did not know that most of my 



78 WALDEN 

readers were equally guilty with myself, and that their deeds 
would look no better in print. The next year I sometimes caught 
a mess of fish for my dinner, and once I went so far as to 
slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my beanfield, — effect his 
transmigration, as a Tartar would say, — and devour him, partly 
for experiment's sake ; but though it afforded me a momentary 
enjoyment, nothwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the 
longest use would not make that a good practice, however it 
might seem to have your woodchueks ready dressed by the village 
butcher. 

Clothing' and some incidental expenses within the same dates, 
though little can be inferred from this item, amounted to 

$8.40% 
Oil and some household utensils 2.00 

So that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for washing and 
mending, which for the most part were done out of the house, 
and their bills have not yet been received, — and these are all and 
more than all the ways by which money necessarily goes out in 
this part of the world, — were 

House $28,121/2 

Farm one year 14.72% . 

Food eight months 8.74 

Clothing, etc., eight months 8.40% 

Oil, etc., eight months 2.00 

In all 1 . .$61.99% 

I address myself now to those of my readers who have a living 
to get. And to meet this I have for farm produce sold 

$23.44 
Earned by day-labor 13.34 



In all $36.78 



ECONOMY 79 

which subtracted from the sum of the outgoes leaves a balance 
of $25.21% on the one side, — this being very nearly the means 
with which I started, and the measure of expenses to be in- 
curred, — and on the other, besides the leisure and independence 
and health thus secured, a comfortable house for me as long as 
I choose to occupy it. 

These statistics, however accidental and therefore uninstruct- 
ive they may appear, as they have a certain completeness, have a 
certain value also. Nothing was given me of which I have not 
rendered some account. It appears from the above estimate, 
that my food alone cost me in money about twenty-seven cents 
a week. It was, for nearly two years after this, rye and Indian 
meal without yeast, potatoes, rice, a very little salt pork, mo- 
lasses, and salt, and my drink water. It was fit that I should 
live on rice, mainly, who loved so well the philosophy of India. 
To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as 
well state that if I dined out occasionally, as I always had done, 
and I trust shall have opportunities to do again, it was fre- 
quently to the detriment of my domestic arrangements. But the 
dining out, being, as I have stated, a constant element, does not 
in the least affect a comparative statement like this. 

I learned from my two years' experience that it would cost 
incredibly little trouble to obtain one's necessary food, even in 
this latitude ; that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, 
and yet retain health and strength. I have made a satisfactory 
dinner, satisfactory on several accounts, simply off a dish of 
purslane {Portulaca oleracea) which I gathered in my cornfield, 
boiled and salted. I give the Latin on account of the savoriness 
of the trivial name. And pray what more can a reasonable man 
desire, in peaceful times, in ordinary noons, than a sufficient 
number of ears of green sweet-corn boiled, with the addition of 
salt ? Even the little variety which I used was a yielding to the 
demands of appetite, and not of health. Yet men have come to 
such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of neces- 



80 WALDEN 

saries, but for want of luxuries ; and I know a good woman who 
thinks that her son lost his life because he took to drinking 
water only. 

The reader will perceive that I am treating the subject rather 
from an economic than a dietetic point of view, and he will not 
venture to put my abstemiousness to the test unless he has a 
well-stocked larder. 

Bread I at first made of pure Indian meal and salt, genuine 
hoe-cakes, which I baked before my fire out of doors on a shingle 
or the end of a stick of timber sawed off in building my house ; 
but it was wont to get smoked and to have a piny flavor. I tried 
flour also ; but have at last found a mixture of rj-e and Indian 
meal most convenient and agreeable. In cold weather it was no 
little amusement to bake several small loaves of this in succes- 
sion, tending and turning them as carefully as an Egyptian his 
hatching eggs. They were a real cereal fruit which I ripened, 
and they had to my senses a fragrance like that of other noble 
fruits, which I kept in as long as possible by wrapping them in 
cloths. I made a study of the ancient and indispensable art of 
bread-making, consulting such authorities as offered, going back 
to the primitive days and first invention of the unleavened kind, 
when from the wildness of nuts and meats men first reached the 
mildness and refinement of this diet, and traveling gradually 
down in my studies through that accidental souring of the dough 
which, it is supposed, taught the leavening process, and through 
the various fermentations thereafter, till I came to "good, sweet, 
wholesome bread," the staff of life. Leaven, which some deem 
the soul of bread, the spiritm which fills its cellular tissue, which 
is religiously preserved like the vestal fire, — some precious 
bottle-full, I suppose, first brought over in the Maj^ower, did 
the business for America, and its influence is still rising, swell- 
ing, spreadino-. in cerealian billows over the land. — this seed I 
regularly and faithfully procured from the \dllage, till at length 
one morning I forgot the rules, and scalded my yeast ; by which 



ECONOMY 81 

accident I discovered that even this was not indispensable, — 
for my discoveries were not by the synthetic but analytic proc- 
ess, — and I have gladly omitted it since, though most housewives 
earnestly assured me that safe and wholesome bread without 
yeast might not be, and elderly people x:)rophesied a speedy 
decay of the vital forces. Yet I find it not to be an essential 
ingredient, and after going without it for a year am still in the 
land of the living; and I am glad to escape the trivialness of 
carrying a bottle-full in my pocket, which would sometimes pop 
and discharge its contents to my discomfiture. It is simpler and 
more respectable to omit it. Man is an animal who more than 
any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances. 
Neither did I put any sal soda, or other acid or alkali, into my 
bread. It would seem that I made it according to the recipe 
which Marcus Porcius Cato gave about two centuries before 
Christ. "Panem depsticium sic facito. Manus mortariumque 
bene lavato. Farinam in mortarium indito, aquae paulatim 
addito, subigitoque pulchre. Ubi bene subegeris, defingito, 
coquitoque sub testu." Which I take to mean — "Make kneaded 
bread thus. 'Wash your hands and trough well. Put the meal 
into the trough, add water gradually, and knead it thoroughly. 
When you have kneaded it well, mold it, and bake it under a 
cover," that is, in a baking-kettle. Not a word about leaven. 
But I did not always use this staff of life. At one time, owing 
to the emptiness of my purse, I saw none of it for more than 
a month. 

Every New Englander might easily raise all his own bread- 
stuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on 
distant and fluctuating markets for them. Yet so far are we 
from simplicity and independence that, in Concord, fresh and 
sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and hominy and corn in 
a still coarser form are hardly used by any. For the most part 
the farmer gives to his cattle and hogs the grain of his own 
producing, and buys flour, which is at least no more wholesome. 



82 WALDEN 

at a greater cost, at the store. . I saw that I could easily raise 
my bushel or two of rye and Indian corn, for the former will 
grow on the poorest land, and the latter does not require the 
best, and grind them in a hand-mill, and so do without rice and 
pork ; and if I must have some concentrated sweet, I found by 
experiment that I could make a very good molasses either of 
pumpkins or beets, and I knew that I needed only to set out a 
few maples to obtain it more easily still, and while these were 
growing I could use various substitutes besides those which I 
have named. "For," as the Forefathers sang, — 

we can make liquor to sweeten our lips 
Of i)umpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips. 

Finally, as for salt, that grossest of groceries, to obtain this 
might be a fit occasion for a visit to the seashore, or, if I did 
without it altogether, I should probably drink the less water. 
I do not learn that the Indians ever troubled themselves to go 
after it. 

Thus I could avoid all trade and barter, so far as my food 
was concerned, and having a shelter alread}^, it would only 
remain to get clothing and fuel. The pantaloons which I now 
wear were woven in a farmer's family, — thank Heaven there is 
so much virtue still in man ; for I think the fall from the farmer 
to the operative as great and memorable as that from the man 
to the farmer; — and in a new country fuel is an encumbrance. 
As for a habitat, if I were not permitted still to squat, T might 
purchase one acre at the same price for which the land I culti- 
vated was sold — namely, eight dollars and eis-ht cents. But as 
it was. I considered that T enhanced the value of the land by 
squatting on it. 

There is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me 
such mi potions as. if T think that I can live on vearetable food 
alonp- and to strike at the root of the matter at once, — for the 
root i« faith, — T am accustomed to answer such, that I can live 



ECONOMY 83 

on board nails. If they cannot understand that, they cannot 
understand much that I have to say. For my part, I am glad 
to hear of experiments of this kind being- tried ; as that a young 
man tried for a fortnight to live on hard, raw corn on the ear, 
using his teeth for all mortar. The squirrel tribe tried the same 
and succeeded. The human race is interested in these experi- 
ments, though a few old women who are incapacitated for them, 
or who own their thirds in mills, may be alarmed. 

My furniture, part of which I made myself, and the rest cost 
me nothing of which I have not rendered an account, consisted 
of a bed, a table, a desk, tln^ee chairs, a looking-glass three 
inches in diameter, a i^air of tongs and andirons, a kettle, a 
skillet, and a frying-pan, a dipper, a wash-bowl, two knives and 
forks, three plates, one cup, one spoon, a jug for oil, a jug for 
molasses, and a japanned lamp. None is so jDOor that he need 
sit on a pumpkin. That is shiftlessness. There is a plenty of 
such chairs as I like best in the village garrets to be had for 
taking them away. Furniture ! Thank God, I can sit and I can 
stand without the aid of a furniture warehouse. What man but 
a philosopher would not be ashamed to see his furniture packed 
in a cart and going up country exposed to the light of heaven 
and the eyes of men, a beggarly account of empty boxes? That 
is Spaulding's furniture. I could never tell from ins^Decting 
such a load whether it belonged to a so-called rich man or a jDOor 
one; the owner always seemed poverty-stricken. Indeed, the 
more you have of such things the jDOorer you are. Each load 
looks as if it contained the contents of a dozen shanties ; and if 
one shanty is poor, this is a dozen times as poor. Pray, for what 
do we move ever but to get rid of our furniture, our exuvics; at 
last to go from this world to another newly furnished, and leave 
this to be burned? It is the same as if all these traps were 
buckled to a man^s belt, and he could not move over the rough 
country where our lines are cast without dragging them, — drag- 



84 WALDEN 

ging his trap. He was a lucky fox that left his tail in the trap. 
The muskrat will gnaw his third leg off to be free. No wonder 
man has lost his elasticity. How often he is at a dead set ! "Sir, 
if I may be so bold, what do you mean by a dead set ?" If you 
are a seer, whenever you meet a man you will see all that he 
owns, ay, and much that he pretends to disown, behind him, even 
to his kitchen furniture and all the trumpery which he saves and 
will not burn, and he will appear to be harnessed to it and 
making what headway he can. I think that the man is at a dead 
set who has got through a knot hole or gateway where his sledge 
load of furniture cannot follow him. I cannot but feel com- 
passion when I hear some trig, compact-looking man, seemingly 
free, all girded and ready, speak of his "furniture," as whether 
it is insured or not. "But what shall I do with my furniture?" 
My gay butterfly is entangled in a spider's web then. Even 
those who seem for a long while not to have any, if you inquire 
more narrowly you will find have some stored in somebody's 
barn. I look upon England today as an old gentleman who is 
traveling with a great deal of baggage, trumpery which has 
accumulated from long housekeeping, which he has not the 
courage to burn ; great trunk, little trunk, bandbox, and bundle. 
Throw away the first three at least. It would surpass the powers 
of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I 
should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run. 
When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which 
contained his all — looking like an enormous wen which had 
grown out of the nape of his neck — I have pitied him, not 
because that was his all, but because he had all that he could 
carry. If I have got to drag my trap, I will take care that it be 
a light one and do not nip me in a vital part. But perchance 
it would be wisest never to put one's paw into it. 

I would observe, by the way, that it costs me nothing for cur- 
tains, for I have no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, 
and I am willing that they should look in. The moon will not 



ECONOMY 85 

sour milk nor taint meat of mine, nor will the sun injure my 
furniture or fade my carpet, and if he is sometimes too warm a 
friend, I find it still better economy to retreat behind some cur- 
tain which nature has provided, than to add a single item to the 
details of housekeeping. A lady once offered me a mat, but as 
I had no room to spare within the house, nor time to spare 
within or without to shake it, I declined it, preferring to wipe 
my feet on the sod before my door. It is best to avoid the 
beginnings of evil. 

Not long since I was present at the auction of a deacon's 
effects, for his life had not been ineffectual : — 

The evil that men do lives after them. 

As usual, a great proportion was trumpery which had begun 
to accumulate in his father's day. Among the rest was a dried 
tapeworm. And now, after lying half a century in his garret 
and other dust holes, these things were not burned ; instead of a 
bonfire^ or purifying destruction of them, there was an auction, 
or increasing of them. The neighbors eagerly collected to view 
them, bought them all, and carefully transported them to their 
garrets and dustholes, to lie there till their estates are settled, 
when they will start again. When a man dies he kicks the dust. 
The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be 
profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the 
semblance of casting their slough annually ; they have the idea 
of the thing, whether they have the reality or not. Would it not 
be well if we were to celebrate such a "busk," or "feast of first 
fruits," as Bartram describes to have been the custom of the 
Mucclasse Indians'? "When a town celebrates the busk," says 
he, "having previously provided themselves with new clothes, 
new pots, pans, and other household utensils and furniture, they 
collect all their worn-out clothes and other despicable things, 
sweep and cleanse their houses, squares, and the whole town, of 
their filth, which with all the remaining grain and other old pro- 



36 WALDEN 

visions they cast together into one common heap, and consume 
it with fire. After having taken medicine, and fasted for three 
days, all the fire in the town is extinguished. During this fast 
they abstain from the gratification of every appetite and passion 
whatever. A general amnesty is proclaimed; all malefactors 
may return to their town. 

"On the fourth morning, the high priest, by rubbing dry 
wood together, jDroduces new fire in the public square, from 
whence every habitation in the town is supplied with the new 
and pure flame." 

They then feast on the new corn and fruits and dance and 
sing for three days, "and the four following days they receive 
visits and rejoice with their friends from neighboring towns 
who have in like manner purified and prepared themselves." 

The Mexicans also practiced a similar purification at the end 
of every fifty-two years, in the belief that it was time for the 
world to come to an end. 

I have scarcely heard of a truer sacrament, that is, as the 
dictionary defines it, "outward and visible sign of an inward 
and spiritual grace," than this, and I have no doubt that they 
were originally inspired directly from heaven to do thus, though 
they have no Biblical record of the revelation. 

For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by 
the labor of my hands, and I found that by working about six 
weeks in a year, I could meet alj the expenses of living. The 
whole of my winters, as well as most of my summers, I had free 
and clear for study. I have thoroughly tried school-keeping, 
and found that my expenses were in proportion, or rather out 
of proportion, to my income, for I was obliged to dress and 
train, not to say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my 
time into the bargain. As I did not teach for the good of my 
fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood, this was a failure. I 
have tried trade ; but I found that it would take ten years to get 



ECONOMY 87 

under way in that, and that then I should probably be on ray 
way to the devil. I was actually afraid that I might by that 
time be doing what is called a good business. When formerly I 
was looking about to see what I could do for a living, some sad 
experience in conforming to the wishes of friends being fresh 
in my mind to tax my ingenuity, I thought often and seriously 
of picking huckleberries ; that surely I could do, and its small 
profits might suffice, — for my greatest skill has been to want but 
little, — so little capital it required, so little distraction from my 
wonted moods, I foolishly thought. While my acquaintances 
went unhesitatingly into trade or the professions, I contem- 
plated this occupation as most like theirs; ranging the hills all 
summer to pick the berries which came in my way, and there- 
after carelessly dispose of them; so, to keep the flocks of 
Admetus. I also dreamed that I might gather the wild herbs, 
or carry evergreens to such villagers as loved to be reminded of 
the woods, even to the city, by hay-cart loads. But I have since 
learned that trade curses everything it handles; and though 
you trade in messages from heaven, the whole curse of trade 
attaches to the business. 

As I preferred some things to others, and especially valued 
my freedom, as I could fare hard and yet succeed well, I did not 
wish to spend my time in earning rich carpets or other fine 
furniture, or delicate cookery, or a house in the Grecian or the 
Gothic style just yet. If there are any to whom it is no inter- 
ruption to acquire these things, and who know how to use them 
when acquired, I relinquish to them the pursuit. Some are 
"industrious," and appear to love labor for its own sake, or 
perhaps because it keeps them out of worse mischief; to such 
I have at present nothing to say. Those who would not know 
what to do with more leisure than they now enjoy, I might 
advise to work twice as hard as they do, — ^work till they pay 
for themselves, and get their free papers. For myself I found 
that the occupation of a day-laborer was the most independent 



88 WALDEN 

of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty days in a 
year to support one. The laborer's day ends with the going 
down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his 
chosen pursuit, independent of his labor ; but his employer, who 
speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end 
of the year to the other. 

In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that 
to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pas- 
time, if we will live simply and wisely ; as the pursuits of the 
simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is 
not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of 
his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do. 

One young man of my acquaintance, who has inherited some 
acres, told me that he thought he should live as I did, if he had 
the means. I would not have any one adopt my mode of living 
on any account; for, besides that before he has fairly learned 
it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there 
may be as many different persons in the world as possible ; but 
I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue 
his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neigh- 
bor's instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let 
him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would 
like to do. It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, 
as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye ; 
but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not 
arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would 
preserve the true course. 

Undoubtedly, in this case, what is true for one is truer still 
for a thousand, as a large house is not proportionally more 
expensive than a small one, since one roof may cover, one cellar 
underlie, and one wall separate several apartments. But for my 
part, I preferred the solitary dwelling. Moreover, it will com- 
monly be cheaper to build the whole yourself than to convince 
another of the advantage of the common wall; and when you 



ECONOMY 89 

have done this, the common partition, to be much cheaper, must 
be a thin one, and that other may prove a bad neighbor, and 
also not keep his side in repair. The only cooperation which 
is commonly possible is exceedingly partial and superficial; 
and what little true cooperation there is, is as if it were not, 
being a harmony inaudible to men. If a man has faith he will 
cooperate with equal faith every^vhere ; if he has not faith, he 
will continue to live like the rest of the world, whatever com- 
pany he is joined to. To cooperate, in the highest as well as 
the lowest sense, means to get our living together. I heard it 
proposed lately that two young men should travel together 
over the world, the one without money, earning his means as he 
went, before the mast and behind the plow, the other carrying 
a bill of exchange in his pocket. It was easy to see that they 
could not long be companions or cooperate, since one would not 
operate at all. They would part at the first interesting crisis in 
their adventures. Above all, as I have implied, the man who 
goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another 
must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time 
before they get off. 

But all this is verj^ selfish, I have heard some of my towns- 
men say. I confess that I have hitherto indulged very little in 
jDhilanthropic enterprises. I. have made some sacrifices to a 
sense of duty, and among others have sacrificed this pleasure 
also. There are those who have used all their arts to persuade 
me to undertake the supi3ort of some jooor family in the town ; 
and if I had nothing to do, — for the devil finds employment 
for the idle, — I might try my hand at some such pastime as that. 
However, when I have thought to indulge myself in this respect, 
and lay their Heaven under an obligation by maintaining cer- 
tain poor persons in all respects as comfortably as I maintain 
myself, and have even ventured so far as to make them the offer, 
they have one and all unhesitatingly preferred to remain poor. 



90 WALDEN 

While my townsmen and women are devoted in so many ways 
to the good of their fellows, I trust that one at least may be 
spared to other and less humane purs\iits. You must have a 
genius for charity as well as for anything else. As for Doing- 
good, that is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I 
have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied 
that it does not agree with my constitution. Probably I should 
not consciously and deliberately forsake my particular calling 
to do the good which society demands of me, to save the uni- 
verse from annihilation ; and I believe that a like but infinitely 
greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves it. But 
I would not stand between any man and his genius ; and to him 
who does this work, which I decline, with his whole heart and 
soul and life, I would say. Persevere, even if the world call it 
doing evil, as it is most likely they will. 

I am far from supposing that my case is a peculiar one; no 
doubt many of my readers would make a similar defense. At 
doing something, — I will not engage that my neighbors shall 
pronounce it good, — I do not hesitate to say that I should be a 
capital fellow to hire ; but what that is, it is for my employer to 
find out. What good I do, in the common sense of that word, 
must be aside from my main path, and for the most part wholly 
unintended. Men say, practically, Begin where you are and 
such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more 
worth, and with kindness aforethought go about doing good. If 
I were to preach at all in this strain, I should say rather. Set 
about being good. As if the sun should stop when he has kin- 
dled his fires up to the splendor of a moon or a star of the sixtli 
magnitude, and go about like a Robin Goodfellow, peeping in 
at every cottage window, inspiring' lunatics, and tainting meats, 
and making darkness visible, in=:tend of steadilv increasing his 
geni*^! heat and beneficence till he is of such brightness that no 
mortal can look him in the face, and then, and in the mean- 
while too, going about the world in his own orbit, doing it good, 



ECONOMY 91 

or rather, as a truer philosophy has discovered, the world going 
about him getting good. When Phaeton, wishing to prove his 
heavenly birth by his beneficence, had the sun's chariot but one 
day, and drove out of the beaten track, he burned several blocks 
of houses in the lower streets of heaven, and scorched the sur- 
face of the earth, and dried up every spring, and made the great 
desert of Sahara, till at length Jupiter hurled him headlong to 
the earth with a thunderbolt, and the sun, through grief at his 
death, did not shine for a year. 

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness 
tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a cer- 
tainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious 
design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that 
dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom, 
which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till 
you are suffocated, for fear that I should get some of his good 
done to me, — some of its virus mingled with my blood. No; — 
in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way. A man 
is not a good man to me because he will feed me if I should be 
starving, or warm me if I should be freezing, or pull me out of 
a ditch if I should ever fall into one. I can find you a New- 
foundland dog that will do as much. Philanthropy is not love 
for one's fellow-man in the broadest sense. Howard was no 
doubt an exceedingly kind and worthy man in his way, and has 
his reward; but, comparatively speaking, what are a hundred 
Howards to us, if their philanthropy do not heljD us in our best 
estate, when we are most worthy to be helped? I never heard 
of a philanthropic meeting in which it was sincerely proposed 
to do any good to me, or the like of me. 

The Jesuits were quite balked by those Indians who, being 
burned at the stake, suggested new modes of torment to their 
tormentors. Being superior to physical suffering, it sometimes 
chanced that they were superior to any consolation which the 
missionaries could offer ; and the law to do as you would be done 



92 WALDEN 

by fell with less persuasiveness on the ears of those who, for 
their part, did not care how they were done by, who loved their 
enemies after a new fashion, and came very near freely for- 
giving them all they did. 

Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need, though 
it be your example which leaves them far behind. If you give 
money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to 
them. We make curious mistakes sometimes. Often the poor 
man is not so cold and hungry as he is dirty and ragged and 
gross. It is partly his taste, and not merely his misfortune. 
If you give him money, he will perhaps buy more rags with it. 
I was wont to iDity the clumsy Irish laborers who cut ice on the 
pond, in such mean and ragged clothes, while I shivered in my 
more tidy and somewhat more fashionable garments, till, one 
bitter cold day, one who had slipped into the water came to my 
house to warm him, and I saw him strip off three pairs of pants 
and two pairs of stockings ere he got down to the skin, though 
they were dirty and ragged enough, it is true, and that he could 
afford to refuse the extra garments which I offered him, he had 
so many intra ones. This ducking was the very thing he needed. 
Then I began to pity myself, and I saw that it would be a 
greater charity to bestow on me a flannel shirt than a whole 
slop-shop on him. There are a thousand hacking at the branches 
of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he 
who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy 
is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery 
which he strives in vain to relieve. It is the j^ious slave-breeder 
devoting the proceeds of every tenth slave to bu}^ a Sunday's 
liberty for the rest. Some show their kindness to the poor by 
employing them in their kitchens. Would they not be kinder if 
they employed themselves there f You boast of spending a tenth 
part of your income in charity; maybe you should spend the 
nine tenths so, and done with it. Society recovers only a tenth 
part of the property then. Is this owing to the generosity of 



ECONOMY 93 

him in whose possession it is found, or to the remissness of the 
officers of justice? 

Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently 
appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated ; and it 
is our selfishness which overrates it. A robust poor man, one 
sunny day here in Concord, praised a fellow-townsman to me, 
because, as he said, he was kind to the poor; meaning himself. 
The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than 
its true spiritual fathers and mothers. I once heard a reverend 
lecturer on England, a man of learning and intelligence, after 
enumerating her scientific, literary, and political worthies, 
Shakespeare, Bacon, Cromwell, Milton, Newton, and others, 
speak next of her Christian heroes, whom, as if his profession 
required it of him, he elevated to a place far above all the rest, 
as the greatest of the great. They were Penn, Howard, and 
Mrs. Fry. Every one must feel the falsehood and cant of this. 
The last were not England's best men and women; only, 
perhaps, her best philanthropists. 

I would not subtract anything from the praise that is due to 
philanthropy, but merely demand justice for all who by their ■ 
lives and works are a blessing to mankind. I do not value chiefly 
a man's uprightness and benevolence, which are, as it were, his 
stem and leaves. Those plants of whose greenness withered we 
make herb tea for the sick, serve but a humble use, and are most 
employed by quacks. I want the flower and fruit of a man ; that 
some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripe- 
ness flavor our intercourse. His goodness must not be a partial 
and transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him 
nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a charity which 
hides a multitude of sins. The i^hilanthropist too often sur- 
rounds mankind with the remembrance of his own cast-off griefs 
as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our 
courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our 
disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion. 



94 WALDEN 

From what southern plains comes up the voice of wailing? 
Under what latitudes reside the heathen to whom we would send 
light ? Who is that intemperate and brutal man whom we would 
redeem ? If anything- ail a man, so that he does not perform his 
functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even, — for that is the 
seat of sympathy, — he forthwith sets about reforming — the 
world. Being a microcosm himself, he discovers, and it is a 
true discovery, and he is the man to make it, — that the world 
has been eating green apples ; to his eyes, in fact, the globe itself 
is a great green apple, which there is danger awful to think of 
that the children of men will nibble before it is ripe; and 
straightway his drastic philanthropy seeks out the Esquimau 
and the Patagonian, and embraces the populous Indian and 
Chinese villages; and thus, by a few years of jDhilanthropic 
activity, the powers in the meanwhile using him for their own 
ends, no doubt, he cures himself of his dyspepsia, the globe 
acquires a faint blush on one or both of its cheeks, as if it were 
beginning to be ripe, and life loses its crudity and is once more 
sweet and wholesome to live. I never dreamed of any enormity 
• greater than I have committed. I never knew, and never shall 
know, a worse man than myself. 

I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sym- 
pathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest 
son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring- 
come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will for- 
sake his generous companions without apology. My excuse for 
not lecturing against the use of tobacco is that I never chewed 
it; that is a penalty which reformed tobacco-chewers have to 
pay; though there are things enough I have chewed, which I 
could lecture against. If you should ever be betrayed into any 
of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what 
your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the 
drowning and tie your shoe-strings. Take your time, and set 
about some free labor. 



ECONOMY 95 

Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the 
saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of 
God and enduring him forever. One would say that even the 
prophets and redeemers had rather consoled the fears than con- 
firmed the hopes of man. There is nowhere recorded a simple 
and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life, any memor- 
able praise of God. All health and success does me good, how- 
ever far off and withdrawn it may appear; all disease and 
failure helps to make me sad and does me evil, however much 
sympathy it may have with me or I with it. If, then, we would 
indeed restore mankind by truly Indian, botanic, magnetic, or 
natural means, let us first be as simple and well as Nature our- 
selves, dispel the clouds which hang over our own brows, and 
take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an over- 
seer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of 
the world. 

I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of 
Shiraz, that "They asked a wise man, saying: Of the many cele- 
brated trees which the Most High God has created lofty and 
umbrageous, they call none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, 
which bears no fruit; what mystery is there in this? He 
replied : Each has its approi:>riate produce, and appointed sea- 
son, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, 
and during their absence dry and withered ; to neither of which 
states is the cypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of 
this nature are the azads, or religious independents. — Fix not 
thy heart on that which is transitory ; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, 
will continue to flow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is 
extinct : if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree ; but 
if it affords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like 
the cypress," 



96 WALDEN 

COMPLEMENTAL VERSES 

THE PRETENSIONS OF POVERTY 

"Thou dost presume too much, poor needy wretch, 
To claim a station in the firmament, 
Because thy humble cottage, or thy tub, 
Nurses some lazy or pedantic virtue 
In the cheap sunshine or by shady springs, 
With roots and pot-herbs ; where thy right hand. 
Tearing those humane passions from the mind, 
Upon whose stocks fair blooming virtues flourish, 
Degradeth nature, and benumbeth sense. 
And, Gorgon-like, turns active men to stone. 
We not require the dull society 
Of your necessitated temperance. 
Or that unnatural stupidity 
That knows nor joy nor sorrow ; nor your f orc'd 
Falsely exalted passive fortitude 
Above the active. This low abject brood. 
That fix their seats in mediocrity. 
Become your servile minds; but w^e advance 
Such virtues only as admit excess. 
Brave, bounteous acts, regal magnificence. 
All-seeing prudence, magnanimity 
That knows no bound, and that heroic virtue 
For which antiquity hath left no name. 
But patterns only, such as Hercules, 
Achilles, Theseus. Back to thy loath'd cell ; 
And when thou seest the new enlightened sphere, 
Study to know but what those worthies were." 

T. Carew. 



II 

WHERE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR 

At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider 
every spot as the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed 
the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. 
In imagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for 
all were to be bought, and I knew their price. I walked over 
each farmer's premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on 
husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at any price, 
mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higher price on 
it, — took everything but a deed of it, — took his word for his 
deed, for I dearly love to talk, — cultivated it, and him too to 
some extent, I trust, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it long 
enough, leaving him to carry it on. This experience entitled 
me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate broker by my friends. 
Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated 
from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat? — 
better if a country seat. I discovered many a site for a house 
not likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought 
too far from the village, but to my eyes the village was too far 
from it. Well, there I might live, I said ; and there I did live,, 
for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could let 
the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring- 
come in. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they 
may place their houses, may be sure that they have been antici- 
pated. An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard, 
woodlot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines 
should be left to stand before the door, and whence each blasted 

97 



98 WALDEN 

tree could be seen to the best advantage; and then I let it lie, 
fallow perchance, for a man is rich in proportion to the number 
of things which he can afford to let alone. 

My imagination carried me so far that I even had the refusal 
of several farms, — the refusal was all I wanted, — but I never 
got my fingers burned by actual possession. The nearest that 
I came to actual possession was when I bought the Hollowell 
l^lace, and had begun to sort my seeds, and collected materials 
with which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; 
but before the owner gave me a deed of it, his wife — every 
man has such a wife — changed her mind and Avished to keep 
it, and he offered me ten dollars to release him. Now, to speak 
the truth, I had but ten cents in the world, and it surpassed 
my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man who had ten cents, or 
who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However, I 
let him keep the ten dollars and the farm, too, for I had carried 
it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold him the farm 
for just what I gave for it, and, as he was not a rich man, 
made him a present of ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, 
and seeds, and materials for a wheelbarrow left. I found thus 
that I had been a rich man without any damage to my property. 
But I retained the landscape, and I have since annually carried 
off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow. With respect to 
landscapes, — 

I am monarch of all I survey, 
My right there is none to dispute. 

I have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the 
most valuable part of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed 
that he had got a few vsdld apples only. Why, the owner does 
not know it for many years when a poet has put his farm in 
rime, the most admirable kind of invisible fence, has fairly 
impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and 
left the farmer only the skimmed milk. 



WHERE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR 99 

The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were: its' 
complete retirement, being about two miles from the village, 
half a mile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the 
highway by a broad field ; its bounding on the river, which the 
owner said protected it by its fogs from frosts in the si3ring, 
though that was nothing to me; the gray color and ruinous 
state of the house and barn, and the dilapidated fences, Avhich 
put such an interv^al between me and the last occupant; the 
hollow and lichen-covered apple trees, g-nawed by rabbits, show- 
ing what kind of neighbors I should have; but above all, the 
recollection I had of it from my earliest voyages up the river, 
when the house was concealed behind a dense grove of red 
maples, through which I heard the house-dog bark. I was in 
haste to buy it, before the proprietor finished getting out some 
rocks, cutting down the hollow apple trees, and grubbing up 
some young birches which had sprung up in the pasture, or, in 
short, had made any more of his improvements. To enjoy these 
advantages I was ready to carry it on ; like Atlas, to take the 
world on my shoulders, — I never heard what compensation he 
received for that, — and do all those things w^hich had no other 
motive or excuse but that I might pay for it and be unmolested 
in my possession of it ; for I knew all the while that it would 
yield the most abundant crop of the kind I wanted if I could 
only afford to let it alone. But it turned out as I have said. 

All that I could say, then, with respect to farming on a large 
scale (I have always cultivated a garden), was that I had had 
my seeds ready. Many think that seeds improve with age. I 
have no doubt that time discriminates between the good and the 
bad: and when at last I shall plant, I shall be less likely to 
be disappointed. But I would say to my fellows, once for all, 
As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but 
little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the 
county jail. 

Old Cato, whose "De Re Rustica" is my "cultivator," says, 



IQQ WALDEN 

and the only translation I have seen makes sheer nonsense of 
the passage, "When you think of getting a farm, turn it thus in 
your mind, not to buy greedily; nor spare your pains to look 
at it, and do not think it enough to go round it once. The 
oftener you go there the more it will please you, if it is good." 
I think I shall not buy greedily, but go round and round it as 
long as I live, and be buried in it first, that it may please me 
the more at last. 

The present was my next experiment of this kind, which I 
]nirpose to describe more at length; for convenience, putting 
the experience of two years into one. As I have said, I do not 
propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as 
chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake 
my neighbors up. 

When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began 
to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, 
was on Independence Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my 
house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defense 
against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being 
of rough weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made 
it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly 
planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, 
especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with 
dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would 
exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout 
the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of 
a certain house on a mountain which I had visited the year 
])efore. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to enter- 
lain a traveling god, and where a goddess might trail her gar- 
ments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such 
as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken 
strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morn- 
ing wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted ; 



WHERE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR IQl 

but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside 
of the earth everywhere. 

The only house I had been the owner of before, if I except 
a boat, was a tent, which I used occasionally when making excur- 
sions in the summer, and this is still rolled up in my garret; 
but the boat, after passing from hand to hand, has gone down 
the stream of time. With this more substantial shelter about 
me I had made some progress toward settling in the world. 
This frame, so slightly clad, was a sort of crystallization around 
me, and reacted on the builder. It was suggestive somewhat 
as a picture in outlines. I did not need to go outdoors to take 
the air, for the atmosphere within had lost none of its freshness. 
It was not so much within doors as behind a door where I sat, 
even in the rainiest weather. The Harivansa says, "An abode 
without birds is like a meat without seasoning." Such was not 
my abode, for I found myself suddenly neighbor to the birds; 
not by having imprisoned one, but having caged myself near 
them. I was not only nearer to some of those which commonly 
frequent the garden and the orchard, but to those wilder and 
more thrilling songsters of the forest which never, or rarely, 
serenade a villager, — the wood-thrush, the veery, the scarlet 
tanager, the field-sparrow, the whippoorwill, and many others. 

I was seated by the shore of a small pond, about a mile and 
a half south of the village of Concord and somewhat higher 
than it, in the midst of an extensive wood between that town and 
Lincoln, and about two miles south of that our only field known 
to fame, Concord Battle Ground ; but I was so low in the woods 
that the opposite shore, half a mile off, like the rest, covered 
with wood, was my most distant horizon. For the first week, 
whenever I looked out on the pond it impressed me like a tarn 
high up on the side of a mountain, its bottom far above the 
surface of other lakes, and, as the sun arose, I saw it throwing 
off its mighty clothing of mist, and here and there, by degrees, 
its soft ripples or its smooth reflecting surface were revealed, 



102 ^Xr-^ . WALDEN 




while the mists, like ghosts, were stealthily withdrawing m every 
€lireetion into the woods, as at the breaking up of some nocturnal 
conventicle. The very dew seemed to hang upon the trees later 
into the day than usual, as on the sides of mountains. 

This small lake was of most value as a neighbor in the inter- 
^•als of a gentle rainstorm in August, when, both air and water 
being perfectly still, but the sky overcast, mid-afternoon had 
all the serenity of evening, and the wood-thrush sang around, 
and was heard from shore to shore. A lake like this is never 
smoother than at such a time; and the clear portion of the air 
above it being shallow and darkened by clouds, the water, full 
of light and reflections, becomes a lower heaven itself so much 
the more imjDortant. From a hilltop nearby, where the wood 
had recently been cut off, theie was a pleasing vista southward 
across the pond, through a wide indentation in the hills which 
form the shore there, where their opposite sides sloping toward 
each other suggested a stream flowing out in that direction 
through a wooded valley, but stream there was none. That 
Avay I looked between and over the near green hills to some 
distant and higher ones in the horizon, tinged with blue. Indeed, 
by standing on tiptoe I could catch a glimpse of some of the 
]:)eaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain ranges" in 
the northwest, those true-blue coins from heaven's own mint, 
and also of some portion of the village. But in other directions, 
even from this point, I could not see over or beyond the woods 
Avhich surrounded me. It is well to have some water in your 
neighborhood, to give buoyancy to and float the earth. One 
value even of the smallest well is that when you look into it 
you see that the earth is not continent but insular. This is as 
important as that it keeps butter cool. When I looked across 
the pond from this peak toward the Sudbury meadows, which 
in time of flood I distinguished elevated perhaps by a mirage 
in their seething valley, like a coin in a basin, all the earth 
beyond the pond appeared like a thin crust insulated and floated 



WHEKE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR 103 

even by this small sheet of intervening water, and I was 
reminded that this on which I dwelt was but dry land. 

Though the view from my door was still more contracted, I 
did not feel crowded or confined in the least. There was pasture 
enough for my imagination. The low shrub-oak plateau to 
which the opposite shore arose, stretched away toward the 
prairies of the West and the steppes of Tartary, affording 
ample room for all the roving families of men. "There are none 
happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon,'' 
— said Damodara, when his herds required new and larger 
pastures. 

Both place and time were changed and I dwelt nearer to 
those parts of the universe and to those ears in history which 
had most attracted me. Where I live was as far off as many a 
region viewed nightly by astronomers. We are wont to imagine 
rare and delectable places in some remote and more celestial 
corner of the system, behind the constellation of Cassiopeia's 
Chair, far from noise and disturbance. I discovered that my 
house actually had its site in such a withdrawn, but forever new 
and unprofaned, part of the universe. If it were worth the 
while to settle in those parts near to the Pleiades or the Hyades, 
to Aldebaran or Altair, then I was really there, or at an equal 
remoteness from the life which I had left behind, dwindled and 
twinkling with as fine a ray to my nearest neighbor, and to be 
seen only in moonless nights by him. Such was that part of 
creation where I had squatted: — 

There was a shepherd that did live, 

And held his thoughts as high 
As were the mounts whereon his flocks 

Did hourly feed him by. 

What should we think of the shepherd's life if his flocks always 
wandered to higher pastures than his thoughts? 

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of 



104 WALDEN 

■ equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. 
I have been as sincere a worshiper of Aurora as the Greeks. 
I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious 
exercise, and one of the best things which I did. They say that 
characters were engraven on the bathing tub of king Tching- 
thang to this effect: "Renew thyself completely each day; do 
it again, and again, and forever again." I can understand 
that. Morning brings back the heroic ages. I was as much 
affected by the faint hum of a mosquito making its invisible 
and unimaginable tour through my apartment at earliest dawn, 
when I was sitting with door and windows open, as I could be 
by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. It was Homer's 
requiem ; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, singing its own 
wrath and wanderings. 'There was something cosmical about 
it; a standing advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting 
vigor and fertility of the world. The morning, which is the 
most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then 
there is least somnolence in us ; and for an hour, at least, some 
part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and 
night. Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called 
, a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the 
mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by 
our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within, 
accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of 
factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air — to a higher 
life than we fell asleeiD from; and thus the darkness bear its 
fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light. That 
man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, 
more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has 
despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening 
way. After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul 
of man, or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, and 
his Genius tries again what noble life it can make. All mem- 
orable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a 



WHEKE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR 105 

monung atmosphere. The Vedas say, "All intelligences awake 
with the morning." Poetry and art, and the fairest and most 
memorable of the actions of men, date from such an hour. All 
poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the children of Aurora, and 
emit their music at sunrise. To him whose elastic and vigorous 
thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morn- 
ing. It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and 
labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a 
dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. 
"Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they 
have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. 
If they had not been overcome with drowsiness they would have 
performed something. The millions are awake enough for phys- 
ical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for 
effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions 
to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have 
never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have 
looked him in the face ? 

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not 
by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, 
which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of 
no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of 
man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something 
to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, 
and so to make a few objects beautiful ; but it is far more glo- 
rious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium 
through which we look, which morally we can do. To effect 
the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man 
is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the 
contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. If we 
refused, or rather used up, such paltry information as we get, 
the oracles would distinctly inform us how this might be done. 

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to 
front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn 



106 WALDEN 

what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that 
I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living- 
is so dear ; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was 
quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the 
marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to 
rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, 
to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and 
if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine 
meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it 
were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a 
true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it 
appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether 
it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded 
that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoA^ 
him forever." 

Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us 
that we were long ago changed into men ; like pyg-mies we fight 
with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and 
our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable 
wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest 
man has hardlj^ need to count more than his ten fingers, or in 
extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. 
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as 
two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a 
million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your 
thumb nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, 
such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand- 
and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he 
would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port 
at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator 
indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three 
meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred 
dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. Our life is 
like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its 



WHERE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR 107 

boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell 
you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with 
all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way, are 
all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and over- 
grown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up 
by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by 
want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households 
in the land; and the only cure for it as for them is in a rigid 
economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and 
elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is 
essential that the Nation have comnaerce, and export ice, and 
talk through a telegraiDh, and ride thirty miles an hour, without 
a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live 
like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. If we do not 
get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights 
to the work, but go to tinkering- upon our lives to improve tliem, 
who will build railroads'? And if railroads are not built, how 
shall we get to heaven in season ? But if we stay at home and 
mind our business, who will want railroads'? We do not ride 
on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what 
those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a 
man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on 
them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly 
over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you. And every 
few years a new lot is laid down and run over ; so that, if some 
have the pleasure of riding on a rail, others have the misfortune 
to be ridden upon. And when they run over a man that is 
walking in his sleep, a supernumera7-y sleeper in the wrong 
position, and wake him up, they suddenly stop the cars, and 
make a hue and cry about it, as if this were an exception, I 
am glad to know that it takes a gang of men for every five miles 
to keep the sleepers down and level in their beds as it is, for 
this is a sign that they may some time get up again. 

Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life ? We 



108 WALDEN 

are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say- 
that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand 
stitches today to save nine tomorrow. As for work, we haven't 
any of any consequence. We have the Saint Vitus dance, and 
cannot possibly keep our heads still. If I should only give a 
few pulls at the parish bell-rope, as for a fire, that is, without 
setting the bell, there is hardly a man on his farm in the out- 
skirts of Concord, notwithstanding that press of engagements 
which was his excuse so many times this morning, nor a boy, 
nor a woman, I might almost say, but would forsake all and 
follow that sound, not mainly to save property from the flames, 
but, if we will confess the truth, much more to see it burn, since 
burn it must, and we, be it known, did not set it on fire, — or 
to see it put out, and have a hand in it, if that is done as hand- 
somely ; yes, even if it were the parish church itself. Hardly 
a man takes a half hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes 
he holds up his head and asks, "What's the news?" as if the 
rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give directions 
to be waked every half hour, doubtless for no other purpose; 
and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After 
a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. 
"Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man any- 
where on this globe," — and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, 
that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the 
Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the 
dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the 
rudiment of an eye himself. 

For my part, I could easily do without the postoffice. I think 
that there are very few important communications made through 
it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two 
letters in my life — I wrote this some years ago — that were 
worth the postage. The penny-post is, commonly, an institu- 
tion through which you seriously offer a man that penny for 
his thought which is so often safely offered in jest. And I am 



WHERE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR 109 

sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. 
If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by acci- 
dent, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steam- 
boat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, 
or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, 
■ — we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are 
acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad 
instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it 
is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women 
over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip. There 
was such a rush, as I hear, the other day at one of the offices 
to learn the foreign news by the last aiTival, that several large 
squares of plate glass belonging to the establishment were 
broken by the pressure, — news which I seriously think a ready 
wit might write a twelvemonth or twelve years beforehand with 
sufficient accuracy. As for Spain, for instance, if you know 
how to throw in Don Carlos and the Infanta, and Don Pedro 
and Seville and Granada, from time to time in the right propor- 
tions, — they may have changed the names a little since I saw 
the papers, — and serve up a bull-fight when other entertain- 
ments fail, it will be true to the letter, and give us as good an 
idea of the exact state or ruin of things in Spain as the most 
succinct and lucid reports under this head in the newspapers: 
and as for England, almost the last significant scrap of news 
from that quarter was the revolution of 1649 ; and if you have 
learned the history of her crops for an average year, you 
never need attend to that thing again, unless your speculations 
are of a merely jDecuniary character. If one may judge who 
I rarely looks into the newspapers, nothing new does ever happen 
I in foreign parts, a French revolution not excepted. 

What news! how much more important to know what that 
is which was never old! "Kieou-he-yu (great dignitary of the 
state of Wei) sent a man to Khoung-tseu to know his news. 
Khoung-tseu caused the messenger to be seated near him, and 



110 WALDEN 

questioned him in these terms: What is your master doing? 
The messenger answered with respect: My master desires to 
diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot come to the 
end of them. The messenger being gone, the i^hilosopher 
remarked: What a worthy messenger! What a worthy mes- 
senger!" The preacher, instead of vexing the ears of drowsy 
farmers on their day of rest at the end of the week, — for Sunday 
is the fit conclusion of an ill-spent Aveek, and not the fresh and 
brave beginning of a new one, — with this one other draggle- 
tail of a sermon, should shout with thundering voice, — "Pause ! 
Avast! Why so seeming fast, but deadly slow?" 

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while 
reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities 
only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare 
it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale and 
the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. If we respected only 
what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would 
resound along the streets. When we are unhurried and wise, 
we perceive that only gi^eat and worthy things have any per- 
manent and absolute existence, — that petty fears and petty 
pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. This is always 
exhilarating and sublime. By closing the eyes and slumbering, 
and consenting to be deceived by shows, men establish and 
confirm their daily life of routine and habit everywhere, which 
still is built on purely illusory foundations. Children, who 
play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than 
men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are 
wiser by experience, that is, by failure. I have read in a Hindoo 
book that "There was a king's son, who, being expelled in 
infancy from his native city, was brought up by a forester, and, 
growing up to maturity in that state, imagined himself to 
belong to the barbarous race with which he lived. One of his 
father's ministers having discovered him, revealed to him what 
he was, and the misconception of his character was removed, 



WHERE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOK m 

and he knew himself to be a prince. So soul," continues the 
Hindoo philosopher, "from the circumstances in which it is 
placed, mistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed 
to it by some holy teacher, and then it knows itself to be 
Brahme." I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live 
this mean life that we do because our vision does not j^enetrate 
the surface of things. We think that that is which appears to 
be. If a man should walk through this town and see only the 
reality, where, think you, would be the "Mill-dam" go to? If 
he should give us an account of the realities he beheld there, 
we should not recognize the place in his description. Look at 
a meeting-house, or a courthouse, or a jail, or a shop, or a 
dwelling-house, and say what that thing really is before a true 
gaze, and they would all go to pieces in your account of them. 
Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind 
the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man. In 
eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all 
these times and places and occasions are now and here. God 
Himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be 
more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled 
to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the 
perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds 
us. The universe constantly and obediently answers to our 
conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid 
for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or 
the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of 
his posterity at least could accomplish it. 

Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be 
thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that 
falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, 
gently and without perturbation; let company come and let 
company go, let the bells ring and the children cry, — deter- 
mined to make a day of it. Why should we knock under and 
go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed in 



112 WALDEN 

that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in 
the meridian shallows. Weather this danger and you are safe, 
for the rest of the way is downhill. With unrelaxed nerves,, 
with morning' vigor, sail by it, looking another way, tied to the 
mast like Ulysses. If the engine whistles, let it whistle till 
it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we 
run ? We will consider what kind of music they are alike. Let 
us settle ourselves, and w^ork and wedge our feet downward 
through the mud and slush of opinion, and jjrejudice, and 
tradition, and delusion and appearance, that alluvion which 
covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York 
and Boston and Concord, through church and state, through 
poetry and philosojDhy and religion, till we come to a hard 
bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say. 
This is, and no mistake; and then begin, having a point d'appui, 
below freshet and frost and fire, a place where you might found 
a Avail or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge, 
not a Nilometer, but a Realometer, that future ages might know 
how deep a freshet of shams and appearances had gathered 
from time to time. If you stand right fronting and face to 
face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, 
as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you 
through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude 
your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. 
If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and 
feel cold in the extremities ; if we are alive, let us go about our 
business. 

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but 
while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. 
Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would 
drink deeper ; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. 
I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet, 
I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the 
day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver ; it discerns and rifts 



WHEEE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR II3 

its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more 
busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and 
feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct 
tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some crea- 
tures use their snout and fore-paws, and with it I would mine 
and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest 
vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining rod and thin 
rising vapors I judge j and here I will begin to mine, 



Ill 

READING 

"With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, 
all men would perhaps become essentially students and observ- 
ers, for certainly their nature and destiny are interesting' to all 
alike. In accumulating jiroperty for ourselves or our posterity, 
in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are 
mortal; but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need 
fear no change nor accident. The oldest Egyptian or Hindoo 
philoso]^her raised a corner of the veil from the statue of the 
divinity; and still the trembling robe remains raised, and I gaze 
upon as fresh a glory as he did, since it was I in him that was 
then so bold, and it is he in me that now reviews the vision. 
No dust has settled on that robe ; no time has elapsed since that 
divinity was revealed. That time which we really improve, or 
which is improvable, is neither past, present, nor future. 

My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but 
to serious reading, than a university ; and though I was beyond 
the range of the ordinary circulating library, I had more than 
ever come within the influence of those books which circulate 
round the world, whose sentences were first written on bark, 
and are now merely copied from time to time on to linen paper. 
Says the poet Mir Camar Uddin Mast, "Being seated to run 
through the region of the spiritual world ; I have had this advan- 
tage in books. To be intoxicated by a single glass of wine; I 
have experienced this pleasure when I have drunk the liquor 
of the esoteric doctrines." I kept Homer's Iliad on my table 
through the summer, though I looked at his page only now and 

114 



READING 115 

then. Incessant labor with my hands, at first, for I had my 
house to finish and my beans to hoe at the same time, made more 
study impossible. Yet I sustained myself by tiie prospect of 
such reading in future. I read one or two shallow books of 
travel in the intervals of my work, till that employment made 
me ashamed of myself, and I asked where it was then that / 
lived. 

The student may read Homer or yEsehylus in the Greek with- 
out danger of dissipation or luxuriousness, for it implies that 
he in some measure emulate their heroes, and consecrate morn- 
ing hours to their jDages. The heroic books, even if printed in 
the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language 
dead to degenerate . times ; and we must laboriously seek the 
meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than 
common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and gen- 
erosity we have. The modern cheap and fertile press, with all 
its translations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic 
writers of antiquity. They seem as solitary, and the letter in 
which they are printed as rare and curious, as ever. It is worth 
the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn 
only some Avords of an ancient language, which are raised out 
of the trivialness of the street, to be perpetual suggestions 
and provocations. It is not in vain that the farmer remembers 
and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard. Men 
sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length 
make way for more modern and practical studies; but the 
adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever 
language they may be written and however ancient they may be. 
For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of 
man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and 
there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as 
Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to 
study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read 
true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will 



lie WALDEN 

task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of 
the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes 
underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this 
ohjeet. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as 
tliey were written. It is not enough even to be able to speak 
the language of that nation by which they are written, for there 
is a memorable interval between the spoken and the written 
language, the language heard and the language read. The one 
is commonly transitory, a sound, a tongue, a dialect merely, 
almost brutish, and we learn it unconsciously, like the brutes, 
of our mothers. The other is the maturity and experience of 
that; if that is our mother tong-ue, this is our father tongue, 
a reserved and select expression, too significant to be heard by 
the ear, which we must be born again in order to speak. The 
crowds of men who merely spoke the Greek and Latin tongues 
in the Middle Ages were not entitled by the accident of birth 
to read the works of genius written in those languages; for 
these were not written in that Greek or Latin which they knew, 
]3ut in the select language of literature. They had not learned 
the nobler dialects of Greece and Rome, but the very materials 
on which they were written were waste paper to them, and 
they prized instead a cheap contemporary literature. But when 
the several nations of Europe had acquired distinct though rude 
written languages of their own, sufficient for the purposes of 
their rising literatures, then first learning revived, and scholars 
Avere enabled to discern from that remoteness the treasures of 
antiquity. What the Roman and Grecian multitude could not 
hear, after the lapse of ages a few scholars read, aiid a few 
scholars only are still reading it. 

However much we may admire the orator's occasional bursts 
of eloquence, the noblest Avritten words are commonly as far 
behind or above the fleeting spoken language as the firmament 
with its stars is behind the clouds. There are the stars, and 
they who can may read them. The astronomers forever com- 



KEADING 117 

meut on and observe them. They are not exhalations like 
our daily colloquies and vaporous breath. What is called elo- 
quence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the 
study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient 
occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can 
hear him ; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occa- 
sion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd 
which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of 
mankind, to all in any age who can understand him. 

No wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his 
expeditions in a precious casket. A written word is the choic- 
est of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us 
and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work 
of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every 
language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all 
human lips; — not be represented on canvas or in marble only, 
but be carved out of the breath of life itself. The symbol of 
an ancient man's thought becomes a modern man's speech. Two 
thousand summers have imparted to the monuments of Grecian 
literature, as to her marbles, only a maturer golden and autumnal 
tint, for they have carried their own serene and celestial atmos- 
phere into all lands to protect them against the corrosion of 
time. Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit 
inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and 
the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every 
cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while 
they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will 
not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible 
aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, 
exert an influence on mankind. When the illiterate and perhaps 
scornful trader has earned by enterprise and industry his cov- 
eted leisure and independence, and is admitted to the circles of 
wealth and fashion, he turns inevitably at last to those still 
higher but yet inaccessible circles of intellect and genius, and 



118 WALDEN 

is sensible only of the imperfection of his culture and the vanity 
and insufficiency of all his riches, and further proves his good 
sense by the pains which he takes to secure for his children that 
intellectual culture whose want he so keenly feels; and thus it 
is that he becomes the founder of a family. 

Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in 
the language in which they were written must have a very 
imperfect knowledge of the history of the human race; for it 
is remarkable that no transcript of them has ever been made 
into any modern tongue, unless our civilization itself may be 
regarded as such a transcript. Homer has never yet been 
printed in English, nor ^^sehylus, nor Virgil even, — works as 
refined, as solidly done, find as beautiful almost as the morn- 
ing itself; for later writers, say what we will of their genius, 
have rarely, if ever, equaled the elaborate beauty and finish 
and the lifelong and heroic literary labors of the ancients. They 
only talk of forgetting them who never knew them. It will be 
soon enough to forget them when we have the learning and the 
genius which will enable us to attend to and appreciate them. 
That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call 
Classics, and the still older and more than classic but even less 
known Scriptures of the nations, shall have still further accu- 
mulated, when the Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and 
Zendavestas and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and Shake- 
speares, and all the centuries to come shall have successively 
deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a 
pile we may hope to scale heaven at last. 

The works of the great poets have never yet been read by 
mankind, for only great poets can read them. They have only 
been read as the multitude read the stars, at most astrologically, 
not astronomically. Most men have learned to read to serve 
a paltry convenience, as they have learned to cipher in order 
to keep accounts and not be cheated in trade ; but of reading as 
a noble intellectual exercise they know little or nothing; yet 



READING 119 

this only is reading', in a high sense, not that which lulls us as 
a luxury and suffers the nobler faculties to sleep the while, but 
what we have to stand on tiptoe to read and devote our most 
alert and wakeful hours to. 

I think that having learned our letters we should read the best 
that is in literature, and not be forever repeating our a b abs, 
and words of one syllable, in the fourth or fifth classes, sitting 
on the lowest and foremost form all our lives. Most men are 
satisfied if they read or hear read, and jjerchance have been 
convicted by the wisdom of one good book, the Bible, and for 
the rest of their lives vegetate and dissipate their faculties in 
what is called easy reading. There is a work in several volumes 
in our Circulating Library entitled Little Reading, which I 
thought referred to a town of that name which I had not been 
to. There are those who, like cormorants and ostriches, can 
digest all sorts of this, even after the fullest dinner of meats 
and vegetables, for they suffer nothing to be wasted. If others 
are the machines to provide this provender, they are the 
machines to read it. They read the nine thousandth tale about 
Zebulon and Sephronia, and how they loved as none had ever 
loved before, and neither did the course of their true love rim 
smooth, — at any rate, how it did run and stumble, and get up 
again and go on! how some poor unfortunate got up on to a 
jteeple, who had better never have gone up as far as the belfry; 
and then, having needlessly got him up there, the happy novelist 
rings the bell for all the world to come together and hear. O 
dear ! how he did get dow^n again ! For my jDart, I think that 
they had better metamorjDhose all such aspiring heroes of uni- 
versal noveldom into man weather-cocks, as they used to put 
heroes among the constellations, and let them swing round there 
till they are rusty, and not come down at all to bother honest 
men with their pranks. The next time the novelist rings the 
bell I will not stir though the meeting-house burn down. "The 
Skip of the Tip-Toe-Hop, a Romance of the Middle Ages, by 



120 WALDEN 

the celebrated author of 'Tittle-Tol-Tan/ to appear in monthly 
parts; a great rush; don't all come together." All this they 
read with saucer eyes, and erect and primitive curiosity, and 
with unwearied gizzard, whose corrugations even yet need no 
sharpening, just as some little four-year-old bencher his two- 
cent gilt-covered edition of Cinderella, — without any improve- 
ment, that I can see, the j^ronunciation, or accent, or emphasis, 
or any more skill in extracting or inserting the moral. The 
result is dullness of sight, as stagnation of the vital circulations, 
and a general deliquium and sloughing off of all the intellectual 
faculties. This sort of gingerbread is baked daily and more 
sedulously than pure wheat or rye-and-Indian in almost every 
oven, and finds a surer market. 

The best books are not read even by those who are called good 
readers. What does our Concord culture amount to? There 
is in this town, with a very few exceptions, no taste for the 
best or for very good books even in English literature, whose 
words all can read and spell. Even the college-bred and so 
called liberally educated men here and elsewhere have really 
little or no acquaintance with the English classics; and as for 
the recorded wisdom of mankind, the ancient classics and Bibles, 
which are accessible to all who will know of them, there are the 
feeblest efforts anywhere made to become acquainted with 
them. I know a woodchopper, of middle age, who takes a 
French paper, not for news as he says, for he is above that, 
but to "keep himself in practice," he being a Canadian by 
birth; and when I ask him what he considers the best thing he 
can do in this world, he says, besides this, to keep up and add 
to his English. This is about as much as the college-bred gen- 
ora]lv do or aspire to do, and they take an English paper for 
lliG purpose. One who has just come from reading perhaps 
ono of the best English books will find how many with whom 
^ can converse about it. Or suppose he comes from reading 

Greek or Latin classic in the original, whose praises are 



READING 121 

familiar even to the so-called illiterate; he will find nobody 
at all to speak to, but must keep silence about it. Indeed, 
there is hardly the professor in our colleges who, if he has 
mastered the difficulties of the language, has proportionately 
mastered the difficulties of the wit and poetry of a Greek poet, 
and has any sympathy to impart the alert and heroic reader; 
and as for the sacred Scriptures, or Bibles of mankind, who 
in this town can tell me even their titles? Most men do not 
know that any nation but the Hebrews have had a scripture. 
A man, any man, will go considerably out of his way to pick up 
a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which the wisest 
men of antiquitj'- have uttered, and whose worth the wise of 
every succeeding age have assured us of; — and yet we learn 
to read only as far as Easy Reading, the primers and class- 
books, and when we leave school, the "Little Reading," and 
story books, which are for boys and beginners ; and our reading, 
our conversation and thinking, are all on a very low level, 
worthy only of pygmies and manikins. 

I aspire to be acquainted with wiser men than this our Con- 
cord soil has produced, whose names are hardly known here. 
Or shall I hear the name of Plato and never read his book? As 
if Plato were my townsman and I never saw him, — my next 
neighbor and I never heard him speak or attended to the wis- 
dom of his words. But how actually is it ? His Dialogues, 
which contain what was immortal in him, lie on the next shelf, 
and yet I never read them. We are underbred and low-lived 
and illiterate; and in this respect I confess I do not make any 
very broad distinction between the illiterateness of -my towns- 
man who cannot read at all, and the illiterateness of him who 
has learned to read only what is for children and feeble intel-. 
lects. We should be as good as the worthies of antiquity, but 
partly by first knowing how good they were. We are a race 
of tit-men, and soar but little higher in our intellectual flights 
than the columns of the daily paper. 



122 WALDEN 

It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There 
are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, 
if we could really hear and understand, would be more salutary 
than the morning or the spring to our lives, and possibly put a 
new asi^ect on the face of things for us. How many a man has 
dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. The 
book exists for us j^erchance which will explain our miracles 
and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we 
may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb 
and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all 
tlie wise men ; not one has been omitted ; and each has answered 
them, according to his ability, by his words and his life. More- 
over, with wisdom we shall learn liberality. The solitary hired 
man on a farm in the outskirts of Concord, who has had his 
second birth and x^eculiar religious experience, and is driven 
as he believes into silent gravity and exclusiveness by his faith, 
may tliink it is not true ; but Zoroaster, thousands of years ago, 
traveled the same road and had the same experience; but he, 
being wise, knew it to be universal, and treated his neighbors 
accordingly, and is even said to have invented and established 
worship among men. Let him humbly commune with Zoroaster 
then, and, through the liberalizing influence of all the worthies, 
with Jesus Christ Himself, and let "our church" go by the 
board. 

We boast that we belong to the nineteenth century and are 
making the most rapid strides of any nation. But consider 
how little this village does for its own culture. I do not wish 
to flatter my townsmen, nor to be flattered by them, for that 
will not advance either of us. We need to be provoked, — 
goaded like oxen, as we are, into a trot. We have a compara- 
tively decent system of common schools, schools for infants 
only; but excepting the half-starved Lyceum in the winter, 
and latterly the puny beginning of a library suggested by the 
state, no school for ourselves. We spend more on almost any 



READING 123 

article of bodily aliment or ailment than on onr mental aliment. 
It is time that we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave 
off our education when we begin to be men and women. It is 
time that villages were universities, and their elder inhabitants 
the fellows of universities, with leisure — if they are indeed 
so well off — to pursue liberal studies the rest of their lives. 
Shall the world be confined to one Paris or one Oxford forever ? 
Cannot students be boarded here and get a liberal education 
under the skies of Concord? Can we not hire some Abelard 
to lecture to us? Alas! what with foddering the cattle and 
tending the store, we are kept from school too long, and our 
education is sadly neglected. In this country, the village should 
in some respects take the place of the nobleman of Europe. 
It should be the patron of the fine arts. It is rich enough. It 
wants only the magnanimit}^ and refinement. It can spend 
money enough on such things as farmers and traders value, 
but it is thought Utopian to propose spending money for things 
which more intelligent men know to be far more worth. This 
town has spent seventeen thousand dollars on a townhouse, 
thank fortune or politics, but jirobably it will not spend so 
much on living wit, the true meat to put into that shell, in a 
hundred years. The one hundred and twenty-five dollars annu- 
ally subscribed for a Lyceum in the winter is better spent than 
any other equal sum raised in the town. If we live in the nine- 
teenth century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which 
the nineteenth century offers? Why should our life be in any 
respect provincial? If we will read newspapers, why not skijD 
the gossip of Boston and take the best newspaper in the world 
at once? — not be sucking the pap of "neutral family" papers, 
or browsing "Olive Branches" here in New England. Let the 
reports of all the learned societies come to us, and we will see 
if they know anything. Why should we leave it to Harper & 
Brothers and Redding & Company to select our reading? As 
the nobleman of cultivated taste surrounds himself with what- 



124 WALDEN 

ever conduces to his culture, — genius — learning — wit — books — 
paintings — statuary — music — philosophical instruments, and the 
like; so let the village do, — not stop short at a pedagogue, a 
parson, a sexton, a parish library, and three selectmen, because 
our pilgrim forefathers got through a cold winter once on a 
bleak rock with these. To act collectively is according to the 
spirit of our institutions; and I am confident that, as our cir- 
cumstances are more flourishing, our means are greater than 
the nobleman's. New England can hire all the wise men in the 
world to come and teach her, and board them round the while, 
and not be provincial at all. That is the uncommon school we 
want. Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men. 
If it is necessary, omit one bridge over the river, go round a 
little there, and throw one arch at least over the darker gulf of 
isiiorance which surrounds us. 



IV 
SOUNDS 

But while we are confined to books, though the most select 
and classic, and read only particular written languages, which 
are themselves but dialects and provincial, w^e are in danger 
of forgetting the language which all things and events speak 
without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard. Much 
is published, but little printed. The rays which stream through 
the shutter will be no longer remembered when the shutter is 
wholly removed. No method nor discipline can supersede the 
necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of 
history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, 
or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, com- 
pared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be 
seen ? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer ? Read 
your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity. 

I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans. Nay, 
I often did better than this. There were times when I could 
not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any 
work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to 
my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my 
accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till 
noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and 
sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds 
sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the 
sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some trav- 
eler's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the 
lapse of time. I grcAV in those seasons like corn in the night, 

125 



126 WALDEK 

and they were far better than any work of the hands would 
have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but 
so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what 
the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of 
works. For the most part, I minded not how the hours went. 
The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was 
morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is 
accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently 
smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its 
trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so had I my chuckle 
or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest. My 
days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any 
heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted 
by the ticking of a clock ; for I lived like the Puri Indians, of 
whom it is said that "for yesterday, today, and tomorrow they 
have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning 
by pointing backward for yesterday, forward for tomorrow, 
and overhead for the passing day." This was sheer idleness 
to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt ; but if the birds and flowers 
had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found 
wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. 
The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his 
indolence. 

I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those 
who were obliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and 
the theater, that my life itself was become my amusement and 
never ceased to be novel. It was a drama of many scenes and 
without an end. If we were always indeed getting our living, 
and resrulating our lives according to the last and best mode 
we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui. Follo>^^ 
your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a 
fresh prospect every hour. Housework was a pleasant pastime. 
When my floor was dirty, I rose early, and, setting all my 
furniture out of doors on the grass, bed and bedstead making 



SOUNDS 127 

but one budget, dashed water on the floor, and sprinkled white 
sand from the pond on it, and then with a broom scrubbed it 
clean and white ; and by the time the villagers had broken their 
fast the morning sun had dried my house sufficiently to allow 
me to move in again, and my meditations were almost uninter- 
rupted. It was pleasant to see my whole household effects out 
on the gTass, making- a little pile like a gypsy's pack, and my 
three-legged table, from which I did not remove the books and 
pen and ink, standing amid the pines and hickories. They 
seemed glad to get out themselves, and as if unwilling to be 
brought in. I was sometimes tempted to stretch an awning 
over them and take my seat there. It was worth the while to 
see the sun shine on these things, and hear the free wind blow 
on them ; so much more interesting most familiar objects look 
outdoors than in the house. A bird sits on the next bough, life- 
everlasting grows under the table, and blackberry vines run 
round its legs ; pine cones, chestnut burs, and strawberry leaves 
are strewn about. It looked as if this was the way these forms 
came to be transferred to our furniture, to tables, chairs, and 
bedstead, — because they once stood in their midst. 

My house was on the side of a hill, immediately on the edge 
of the larger wood, in the midst of a young forest of pitch pines 
and hickories, and half a dozen rods from the pond, to which a 
narrow footpath led down the hill. In my front yard grew the 
strawberry, blackberry, and life-everlasting, johnswort and 
goldenrod, shrub-oaks and sand-cherry, blueberry and ground- 
nut. Near the end of May, the sand-cherry (cerasus pumila) 
adorned the sides of the path with its delicate flowers arranged 
in umbels cylindrically about its short stems, which last, in the 
fall, weighed down with good-sized and handsome cherries, 
fell over in wreaths like rays on every side. I tasted them out 
of compliment to Nature, though they were scarcely palatable. 
The sumach (rhus glabra) grew luxuriantly about the house, 
pushing up through the embankment which I had made, and 



128 ' WALDEN 

growing five or six feet the first season. Its broad pinnate 
tropical leaf was pleasant though strange to look on. The 
large buds, suddenly pushing out late in the spring from dry 
sticks which had seemed to be dead, developed themselves as 
by magic into graceful green and tender boughs, an inch in 
diameter; and sometimes, as I sat at my window, so heed- 
lessly did they grow and tax their weak joints, I heard a fresh 
and tender bough suddenly fall like a fan to the ground, when 
there was not a breath of air stirring, broken off by its own 
weight. In August, the large masses of berries, which, when 
in flower, had attracted many wild bees, gradually assumed 
th.eir bright velvety crimson hue, and by their weight again 
bent down and broke the tender limbs. 

As I sit at my window this summer afternoon, hawks are cir- 
cling about mj' clearing; the tantivy of wikl pigeons, flying by 
twos and threes athwart my view, or perching restless on the 
white-pine boughs behind my house, gives a voice to the air ; 
a fishhawk dimples the glassy surface of the pond and brings 
up a fish; a mink steals out of the marsh before my door and 
seizes a frog by the shore; the sedge is bending under the weight 
of the reed-birds flitting hither and thither; and for the last 
half hour I have heard the rattle of railroad cars, now dying 
away and then reviving like the beat of a partridge, conveying 
travelers from Boston to the country. For I did not live so 
out of the world as that bo}^ who, as I hear, w^as put out to a 
farmer in the east part of the town, but ere long ran away 
and came home again, quite down at the heel and homesick. He 
had never seen such a dull and out-of-the-way place ; the folks 
were all gone off; why, yon couldn't even hear the whistle! I 
doubt if there is such a place in Massachusetts now : — 

In truth, our village has become a butt 
* For one of those fleet railroad shafts, and o 'er 
Our peaceful plain its soothing sound is — Concord. 



SOUNDS 129 

The Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond about a Hundred 
rods south of where I dwell. I usually go to the village along 
its causeway, and am, as it were, related to society by this link. 
The men on the freight trains, who go over the whole length 
of the road, bow to me as an old acquaintance, they pass me so 
often, and apparently they take me for an employee; and so 
I am. I, too, would fain be a track-repairer somewhere in the 
orbit of the earth. 

The whistle of the locomotive penetrates my woods summer 
and winter, sounding like the scream of a hawk sailing over 
some farmer's yard, informing me that many restless city 
merchants are arriving within the circle of the town, or adven- 
turous country traders from the other side. As they come 
under one horizon, they shout their warning to get off the 
track to the other, heard sometimes through the circles of 
two towns. Here come your groceries, country; your rations, 
countiymen! Nor is there any man so independent on 
his farm that he can say them nay. And here's your pay 
for them! screams the countryman's whistle; timber like 
long battering rams going twenty miles an hour against the 
city's walls, and chairs enough to seat all the weaiy and 
heavy laden that dwell within them. With such huge and 
lumbering civility the country hands a chair to the city. All 
the Indian huckleberry hills are stripped, all the cranberry 
meadows are raked into the city. Up comes the cotton, 
down goes the woven cloth; up comes the silk, down goes the 
woolen; up come the books, but down goes the wit that 
writes them. 

When I meet the engine with its train of cars moving off 
with planetary motion, — or, rather, like a comet, for the beholder 
knows not if with that velocity and with that direction it wilt 
ever revisit this system, since its orbit does not look like a 
returning curve, — with its steam cloud like a banner streaming 
behind in golden and silver wreaths, .like many a downy cloud 



130 WALDEN 

which I have seen, high in the heavens, unfolding its masses to 
the light, — as if this traveling demigod, this cloud-compeller, 
would ere long take the sunset sky for the livery of his train ; 
when I hear the iron horse make the hills echo with his snort 
like thunder, shaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire 
and smoke from his nostrils (what kind of winged horse or fiery 
dragon they will put into the new Mythology I don't know), 
it seems as if the earth had got a race now worthy to inhabit it. 
If all were as it seems, and men made the elements their serv- 
ants for noble ends! If the cloud that hangs over the engine 
were the perspiration of heroic deeds, or as beneficent as that 
which floats over the farmer's fields, then the elements and 
Nature herself would cheerfully accompany men on their errands 
and be their escort. 

I watch the passage of the morning cars with the same feeling 
that I do the rising of the sun, which is hardly more regular. 
Their train of clouds stretching far behind and rising higher 
and higher, going to heaven while the cars are going to Boston, 
conceals the sun for a minute and casts my distant field into the 
shade, a celestial train beside which the petty train of cars 
which hugs the earth is but the barb of the spear. The stabler 
of the iron horse was up early this winter morning by the light 
of the stars amid the mountains, to fodder and harness his steed 
Fire, too, was awakened thus early to put the vital heat in him 
and get him off. If the enterprise were as innocent as it is 
early! If the snow lies deep, they strap on his snow-shoes, 
and with the giant plow plow a furrow from the mountains 
to the seaboard, in which the cars, like a following drill-barrow, 
sprinkle all the restless men and floating merchandise in the 
country for seed. All day the fire-steed flies over the country, 
stopping only that his master may rest, and I am awakened by 
his trauip and defiant snort at midnight, when in some remote 
glen in the woods he fronts the elements incased in ice and 
snow ; and he will reach his stall only with the morning star, to 



SOUNDS 131 

start once more on his travels without rest or slumber. Or per- 
chance, at evening, I hear him in his stable blowing off the 
superfluous energy of the day, that he may calm his nerves and 
cool his liver and brain for a few hours of iron slumber. If the 
enterprise were as heroic and commanding as it is protracted 
and unwearied ! 

Far through unfrequented woods on the confines of towns, 
where once only the hunter penetrated by day, in the darkest 
night dart these bright saloons without the knowledge of their 
inhabitants; this moment stopping at some brilliant station- 
house in town or city, where a social crowd is gathered, the 
next in the Dismal Swamp, scaring the owl and fox. The start- 
ings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the village 
day. They go and come with such regularity and precision, and 
their whistle can be heard so far, that the farmers set their 
clocks by them, and thus one well-conducted institution regu- 
lates a whole country. Have not men improved somewhat in 
punctuality since the railroad was invented ? Do they not talk 
and think faster in the depot than they did in the stage-office? 
There is something electrifying in the atmosphere of the former 
place. I have been astonished at the miracles it has wrought ; 
that some of my neighbors, who, I should have prophesied, once 
for all, would never go to Boston by so prompt a conveyance, 
are on hand when the bell rings. To do things "railroad fashion" 
is now the by-word ; and it is worth the while to be warned so 
often and so sincerely by any power to get off its track. There 
is no stopping to read the riot act, no firing over the heads of 
the mob, in this case. We have constructed a fate, an Atropos, 
that never turns aside. (Let that be the name of your engine.) 
Men are advertised that at a certain hour and minute these bolts 
will be shot toward particular points of the compass; yet it 
interferes with no man's business, and the children go to school 
on the other track. We live the steadier for it. We are all edu- 
cated thus to be sons of Tell. The air is full of invisible bolts. 



132 WALDEN 

Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your 
own track, then. 

What recommends commerce to me is its enterprise and 
bravery. It does not clasp its hands and pray to Jupiter. I 
see these men every day go about their business with more or 
less courage and content, doing more even than they suspect, 
and perchance better employed than they could have consciously 
devised. I am less affected by their heroism who stood up for 
half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista than by the 
steady and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow- 
plow for their winter quarters; who have not merely the three 
o'clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was 
the rarest, but whose courage does not go to rest so early, who 
go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews of their 
iron steed are frozen. On this morning of the Great Snow, 
perchance, which is still raging and chilling men's blood, I hear 
the muffled tone of their engine bell from out the fog bank of 
their chilled breath, which announces that the cars are coming, 
without long delay, notwithstanding the veto of a New England 
northeast snow storm, and I behold the plowmen covered with 
snow and rime, their heads peering above the mold-board which 
is turning down other than daisies and the nests of fieldmice, 
like bouldei-s of the Sierra Nevada, that occupy an outside place 
in the universe. 

Commerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adven- 
turous, and unwearied. It is very natural in its methods withal, 
far more so than many fantastic enterprises and sentimental 
experiments, and hence its singular success. I am refreshed 
and expanded when the freight train rattles past me, and I smell 
the stores which go dispensing their odors all the way from 
Long Wharf to Lake Champlain, reminding me of foreign 
parts, of coral reefs, and Indian oceans, and tropical climes, 
and the extent of the globe. I feel more like a citizen of the 
world at the sight of the palm-leaf which will cover so many 



SOUNDS 133 

flaxen New England heads the next summer, the Manilla hemp 
and cocoanut husks, the old junk, gninny bags, scrap iron, and 
rusty nails. This carload of torn sails is more legible and inter- 
esting now than if they should be wrought into paper and 
printed books. Who can Avrite so graphically the history of 
the storms they have weathered as these rents have done? They 
are proof-sheets which need no correction. Here goes lumber 
from the Maine woods, which did not go out to sea in the last 
freshet, risen four dollars on the thousand because of what did 
go out or was split up : pine, spruce, cedar, — first, second, third, 
and fourth qualities, so lately all of one quality, to wave over 
the bear, and moose, and caribou. Next rolls Thomaston lime, 
a prime lot, which will get far among the hills before it gets 
slacked. These rags in bales, of all hues and qualities, the 
lowest condition to which cotton and linen descend,- the final 
result of dress, — of patterns which are now no longer cried up, 
unless it be in Milwaukie, as those splendid articles, English, 
French, or American prints, ginghams, muslins, etc., gathered 
from all quarters both of fashion and poverty, going to become 
paper of one color or a few shades only, on which forsooth will 
be written tales of real life, high and low, and founded on fact ! 
This closed car smells of salt fish, the strong New England and 
commercial scent, reminding me of the Grand Banks and the 
fisheries. Who has not seen a salt fish, thoroughly cured for 
this world, so that nothing can spoil it, and putting the perse- 
verance of the saints to the blush? with which you may sweep 
or pave the streets, and split your kindlings, and the teamster 
shelter himself and his lading against sun, wind, and rain behind 
it, — and the trader, as a Concord trader once did, hang it up 
by his door for a sign when he commences business, until at 
last his oldest customer cannot tell surely whether it be animal, 
vegetable, or mineral, and yet it shall be as pure as a snow- 
flake, and if it be put into a pot and boiled, will come out an 
excellent dun fish for a Saturday's dinner. Next Spanish hides, 



134 WALDEN 

with the tails still preserving their twist and the angle of eleva- 
tion they had when the oxen that wore them Avere careering 
over the pampas of the Spanish main, — a type of all obstinacy, 
and evincing how almost hopeless and incurable are all consti- 
tutional vices. I confess that, practically speaking, when I 
have learned a man's real disposition, I have no hopes of chang- 
ing it for the better or worse in this state of existence. As the 
Orientals say, "A cur's tail may be warmed, and pressed, and 
bound round with ligatures, and after a twelve years' labor 
bestowed upon it, still it will retain its natural form." The only 
effectual cure for such inveteracies as these tails exhibit is to 
make glue of them, which I believe is what is usually done with 
them, and then they will stay put and stick. Here is a hogs- 
head of molasses or of brandy directed to John Smith, Cuttings- 
ville, Vermont, some trader among the Green Mountains, who 
imports for the farmers near his clearing, and now perchance 
stands over his bulkhead and thinks of the last arrivals on the 
coast, how they may affect the price for him, telling his custom- 
ers this moment, as he has told them twenty times before this 
morning, that he expects some by the next train of prime quality. 
It is advertised in the Cutting-sville Times. 

While these things go up other things come down. Warned 
by the whizzing sound, I look up from my book and see some 
tall pine, hewn on far northern hills, which has winged its way 
over the Green Mountains and the Connecticut, shot like an 
arrow through the township within ten minutes, and scarce 
another eye beholds it ; going 

to be the mast 
Of some great ammiraJ. 

And hark! here comes the cattle-train bearing the cattle of a 
thousand hills, sheepcots, stables, and cow-yards in the air, 
drovers with their sticks, and shepherd boys in the midst of 
their flocks, all but the mountain pastures, whirled along like 



SOUNDS • 135 

leaves blown from the mountains by the September gales. The 
air is filled with the bleating of calves and sheep, and the hus- 
tling of oxen, as if a pastoral valley were going by. When the 
old bell-wether at the head rattles his bell, the mountains do 
indeed skip like rams and the little hills like lambs. A carload 
of drovers, too, in the midst, on a level with their droves now, 
their vocation gone, but still clinging to their useless sticks as 
their badges of office. But their dogs, where are they? It is a 
stampede to them; they are quite thrown out; they have lost 
the scent. Methinks I hear them barking behind the Peterboro 
Hills, or panting up the western slope of the Green Mountains. 
They will not be in at the death. Their vocation, too, is gone. 
Their fidelity and sagacity are below par now. They will slink 
back to their kennels in disgrace, or perchance run wild and 
strike a league with the wolf and the fox. So is your pastoral 
life whirled past and away. But the bell rings, and I must get 
off the track and let the cars go by : — 

Wliat 's the railroad to me? 

I never go to see 

Where it ends. 

It fills a few hollows, 

And makes banks for the swallows, 

It sets the sand a-blowing, 

And the blackberries a-growing, 

but I cross it like a cart-path in the woods. I will not have my 
eyes put out and m}^ ears si:)oiled by its smoke and steam and 



Now that the cars are gone by and all the restless world with 
them, and the fishes in the pond no longer feel their rumbling, 
I am more alone than ever. For the rest of the long afternoon, 
perhaps, my meditations are interrupted only by the faint rattle 
of a carriage or team along the distant highway. 

Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, Acton, 



136 WALDEN 

Bedford, or Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, a faint, 
sweet, and, as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the 
wilderness. At a sufficient distance over the woods this sound 
acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the 
horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept. All sound 
heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the 
same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the inter- 
vening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to 
our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it. There came to me 
in this case a melody which the air had strained, and which had 
conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion 
of the sound which the elements had taken up and modulated 
and echoed from vale to vale. The echo is, to some extent, an 
original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is 
not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, 
but partly the voice of the wood; the same trivial words and 
notes sung by a wood-nymph. 

At evening, the distant lowing of some cow in the horizon 
beyond the woods sounded sweet and melodious, and at first I 
would mistake it for the voices of certain minstrels by whom 
I was sometimes serenaded, who might be straying over hill and 
dale ; but soon I was not unpleasantly disappointed when it was 
prolonged into the cheap and natural music of the cow. I do 
not mean to be satirical, but to express my appreciation of those 
youths' singing, when I state that I perceived clearly that it was 
akin to the music of the cow, and they were at length one articu- 
lation of Nature. 

Regularly at half-past seven, in one part of the summer, 
after the evening train had gone by, the whippoorwills chanted 
their vespers for half an hour, sitting on a stump by my door, 
or upon the ridge pole of the house. They would begin to sing 
almost with as much precision as a clock, within five minutes 
of a particular time, referred to the setting of the sun, every 
evening. T had a rare opportunity to become acquainted with 



SOUNDS 137 

their habits. Sometimes I heard four or five at once in different 
parts of the wood, by accident one a bar behind another, and so 
near me that 1 distinguished not only the cluck after each note, 
but often that singuhir buzzing sound like a fly in a spider's 
Aveb, only jDroportionally louder. Sometimes one would circle 
round and round me in the woods a few feet distant as if 
tethered by a string, when probably I was near its eggs. They 
sang at intervals throughout the night, and were again as musi- 
cal as ever just before and about dawn. 

"When other birds are still the screech owls take up the strain, 
like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream 
is truly Ben Jonsonian. Wise midnight hags! It is no honest 
and blunt tu-whit tu-who of the poets, but, without jesting, a 
most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolations of suicide 
lovers remembering tlie pangs and delights of supernal love in 
the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear their wailing, their dole- 
ful responses, trilled along the woodside; reminding me some- 
times of music and singing birds; as if it were the dark and 
tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be 
sung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy fore- 
bodings, of fallen souls that once in human shape night-walked 
the earth and did the deeds of darkness, now expiating their 
sins with their wailing hymns or threnodies in the scenery of 
tlieir transgressions. They give me a new sense of the variety 
and capacity of that nature which is our common dwelling. 
Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! sighs one on this 
side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair to 
some new jDerch on the gray oaks. Then — that I never d been 
hor-r-r-r-n! echoes another on the farther side Avith tremulous 
sincerity, and — bor-r-r-r-n! comes faintly from far in the Lin- 
coln woods. 

I was also serenaded by a hooting owl. Near at hand you 
could fancy it the most melancholy sound in Nature, as if she 
meant by this to stereotype and make permanent in her choir 



138 WALDEN 

the dying moans of a human being, — some poor weak relic of 
mortality who has left hope behind, and howls like an animal, 
yet with human sobs, on entering the dark valley, made more 
awful by a certain g-urgling melodiousness, — I find myself begin- 
ning with the letters gi when I try to imitate it, — expressive of 
a mind which has reached the gelatinous mildewy stage in the 
mortification of all healthy arid courageous thought. It reminded 
me of ghouls and idiots and insane bowlings. But now one 
answers from far woods in a strain made really melodious by 
distance, — Hoo hoo hoo hoorer lioo ; and indeed for the most 
part it suggested only pleasing associations, whether heard by 
day or night, summer or winter. 

I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and 
maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to 
swamps and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting 
a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized. 
They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which 
all have. All day the sun has shone on the surface of some 
savage SAvamp, where the single spruce stands hung with usnea 
lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps 
amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk be- 
neath; but now a more dismal .and fitting day dawns, and a 
different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of 
Nature there. 

Late in the evening I heard the distant rumbling of wagons 
over bridges, — a sound heard farther than almost any other at 
night, — the baying of dogs, and sometimes again the lowing of 
some disconsolate cow in a distant barn-yard. In the mean- 
while all the shore rang with the trump of bullfrogs, the sturdj^ 
spirits of ancient wine-bibbers and wassailers, still unrepentant, 
trying to sing a catch in their Stygian lake, — if the Walden 
nymphs will pardon the comparison, for though there are 
almost no weeds, there are frogs there, — who would fain keep 
up the hilarious rules of their old festal tables, though their 



SOUNDS 139 

voices have waxed hoarse and solemnly gi-ave, mocking at mirth, 
and the wine has lost its flavor, and become only liquid to dis- 
tend their paunches, and sweet intoxication never comes to 
drown the memory of the past, but mere saturation and water- 
loggedness and distention. The most aldermanic, with his chin 
upon a heart-leaf, which serves for a napkin to his drooling 
chaps, under this northern shore quaffs a deep draught of 
the once scorned water, and passes round the cup with the 
ejaculation tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk! and straightway 
comes over the water from some distant cove the same pass- 
word repeated, where the next in seniority and girth has gulped 
down to his mark ; and when this observance has made the cir- 
cuit of the shores, then ejaculates the master of the ceremonies, 
with satisfaction, tr-r-r-oonk! and each in his turn repeats the 
same down to the least distended, leakiest, and flabbiest- 
paunched, that there be no mistake; and then the bowl goes 
round again and again, until the sun disperses the morning 
mist, and only the patriarch is not under the pond, but vainly 
bellowing troonk from time to time, and pausing for a reply. 
I am not sure that I ever heard the sound of cock-crowing 
from my clearing, and I thought that it might be worth the 
while to keep a cockerel for his music merely, as a singing bird. 
The note of this once wild Indian pheasant is certainly the most 
remarkable of any bird's, and if they could be naturalized with- 
out being domesticated, it would soon become the most famous 
sound in our woods, surpassing the clangor of the goose and 
the hooting of the owl; and then imagine the cackling of the 
hens to fill the pauses when their lord's clarion rested! No 
wonder that man added this bird to his tame stock, — to say 
nothing of the eggs and drumsticks. To walk in a winter morn- 
ing in a wood where these birds abounded, their native woods, 
and hear the wild cockerels crow on the trees, clear and shrill 
for miles over the resounding earth, drowning the feebler notes 
of other birds, — think of it ! It would put nations on the alert. 



140 WALDEN 

Who would not be early to rise, and rise earlier and earlier 
every successive day of liis life, till he became unspeakably 
healthy, wealthy, and wise? This foreign bird's note is cele- 
brated by the poets of all countries along with the notes of their 
native songsters. All climates agree with brave Chanticleer. 
He is more indigenous even than the natives. His health is ever 
good, his lungs are sound, his spirits never flag. Even the sailor 
on the Atlantic and Pacific is awakened by his voice; but its 
shrill sound never roused me from my slumbers. I kept neither 
dog, cat, cow, pig, nor hens, so that you would have said there 
was a deficiency of domestic sounds ; neither the churn, nor the 
spinning-wheel, nor even the singing of the kettle, nor the hiss- 
ing of the urn, nor children crying, to comfort one. An old- 
fashioned man would have lost his senses or died of ennui before 
this. Not even rats in the wall, for they were starved out, or 
rather were never baited in, — only squirrels on the roof and 
under the floor, a whippoorwill on the ridge pole, a blue-jay 
screaming beneath the window, a hare or woodchuck under the 
house, a screech-owl or a cat-owl behind it, a flock of wild geese 
or a laughing loon on the pond, and a fox to bark in the night. 
Not even a lark or an oriole, those mild plantation birds, ever 
visited my clearing. No cockerels to crow nor hens to cackle in 
the yard. No yard ! but unf enced Nature reaching up to your 
very sills. A young forest growing up under your windows, 
and wild sumach and blackberry vines breaking through into 
your cellar; sturdy pitch-pines rubbing and creaking against 
the shingles for want of room, their roots reaching quite under 
the house. Instead of a scuttle or a blind blown off in the 
gale, — a pine tree snapped off or torn up by the roots behind 
your house for fuel. Instead of no path to the front-yard gate 
in the Great Snow, — no gate — no front-yard, — and no path to 
the civilized world ! 



SOLITUDE 

This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, 
and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with 
a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along 
the stony shore of the pond in my shirt sleeves, though it is 
cool as well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to 
attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial to me. The 
bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note of the whip- 
poorwill is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. 
Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost 
takes away my breath ; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled 
but not ruffled. These small waves raised by the evening wind 
are as remote from storm as the smooth * reflecting surface. 
Though it is now dark, the wind still blows and roars in the 
wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the rest with 
their notes. The repose is never complete. The wildest animals 
do not repose, but seek their prey now ; the fox, and skunk, and 
rabbit now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are 
Nature's watchmen, — links which connect the daj^s of animated 
life. 

When I return to my house I find that visitors have been 
there and left their cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath 
of evergreen, or a name in pencil on a yelloAv walnut leaf or 
chip. They who come rarely to the woods take some little piece 
of the forest into their hands to play with by the way, which 
they leave, either intentionally or accidentally. One has peeled 
a willow wand, woven it into a ring, and dropped it on my 

141 



142 WALDEN 

table. I could always tell if visitors had called in my absence, 
either by the bended twigs or grass, or the print of their shoes, 
and generally of what sex or age or quality they were by some 
slight trace left, as a flower dropped, or a bunch of grass 
plucked and thrown away, even as far off as the railroad, half 
a mile distant, or bj^ the lingering odor of a cigar or pipe. 
Nay, I was frequently notified of the passage of a traveler along 
the highway sixty rods off by the scent of his pipe. 

There is commonly sufficient space about us. Our horizon is 
never quite at our elbows. The thick wood is not just at our 
door, nor the pond, but somewhat is always clearing, familiar 
and worn by ns, appropriated and fenced in some way, and 
reclaimed from Nature. For what reason liave I this vast range 
and circuit, some square miles of unfrequented forest, for mj'' 
privacy, abandoned to me by men? My nearest neighbor is a" 
mile distant, and no house is ^dsible from any place but the 
hill tops within half a mile of my own. I have my horizon 
bounded by woods all to myfeelf ; a distant vieAV of the railroad 
where it touches the pond on the one hand, and of the fence 
which skirts the woodland road on the other. But for the most 
part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It is as 
much Asia or Africa as New England. I have, as it were, my 
own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself. 
At night there was never a traveler passed my house, or knocked 
at my door, more than if I were the first or last man ; unless it 
were in the spring, when at long intervals some came from the 
village to fish for pouts, — they plainly fished much more in the 
Walden Pond of their own natures, and baited their hooks wdth 
darkness, — but they soon retreated, usually with light baskets, 
and left "the world to darkness and to me." and the black kernel 
of the night was never profaned by any human neighborhood. 
I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, 
though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles 
have been introduced. 



SOLITUDE 143 

Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, 
the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any 
natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melan- 
choly man. There can be no very black melancholy to him who 
lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still. There was 
never yet such a storm but it was JEolian music to a healthy 
and innocent ear. Nothing can rightly compel a simple and 
brave man to a vulgar sadness. "While I enjoy the friendship 
of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to 
me. The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in 
the house today is not drear and melancholy, but good for me, 
too. Though it prevents my hoeing them, it is of far more worth 
than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as to cause the 
seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low- 
lands, it would still be good for the gTass on the uplands, and, 
being good for the grass, it would be good for me. Sometimes, 
when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were 
more favored by the gods than they, beyond any deserts that I 
am conscious of ; as if I had a warrant and surety at their hands 
which my fellows have not, and were especially guided and 
guarded. I do not flatter myself, but if it be possible they 
flatter me." I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed 
b}^ a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after 
I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near 
neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy 
life. To be alone was something unpleasant. But I was at the 
same time conscious of a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed 
to foresee my recovery. In the midst of a gentle rain while 
these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet 
and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the 
drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite 
and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere 
sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neigh- 
borhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since. 



144 WALDEN 

Eveiy little pine needle exj^anded and swelled with sympathy 
and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the pres- 
ence of something kindred to me, even in scenes which we are 
accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of 
blood to me and humanest was not a person nor a villager, that 
I thought no place could ever be strange to me again. — 

Mourning untimely consumes the sad; 
Few are their days in the land of the living, 
Beautiful daughter of Tosear. 

Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain 
storms in the spring or fall, whioh confined me to the house 
for the afternoon as well as the forenoon, soothed by their 
ceaseless roar and pelting ; when an early twilight ushered in a 
long evening in which many thoughts had time to take root and 
unfold themselves. In those driving northeast rains which tried 
the village houses so, when the maid stood ready with mop and 
])ail in front of entries to keep the deluge out, I sat behind my 
door in my little house, which was all entry, and thoroughly 
enjoyed its protection. In one heavy thunder shower the light- 
ning struck a large pitch-pine across the pond, making a very 
conspicuous and perfectly regular spiral groove from top to 
bottom, an inch or more deep, and four or five inches wide, as 
you would groove a walking-stick. I passed it again the other 
day, and was struck with awe on looking up and beholding that 
mark, now more distinct than ever, where a terrific and resist- 
less bolt came down out of the harmless sky eight years ago. 
Men frequently say to me, ^'I should think you would feel lone- 
some down there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and 
snowy days and nights especially." I am tempted to reply to 
such, — This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. 
How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabit- 
ants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appre- 
ciated by our instruments'? Why should I feel lonely? is not 



SOLITUDE 145 

our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to 
me not to be the most important question. What sort of space 
is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him 
solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring 
two minds much nearer to one another. What do we want most 
to dwell near to? Not to many men surely, the depot, the post- 
office, the bar-room, the meeting-house, the school-house, the 
grocery, Beacon Hill, or the Five Points, where men most con- 
gregate, but to the perennial source of our life, whence in all 
our experience we have found that to issue, as the willow stands 
near the water and sends out its roots in that direction. This 
will vary with different natures, but this is the place where a 
wise man will dig his cellar. ... I one evening overtook one 
of my townsmen, who has accumulated what is called "a hand- 
some proi^erty," — though I never got a fair view of it, — on the 
Walden road, driving a pair of cattle to market, who inquired 
of me how I could bring my mind to give up so many of the 
comforts of life. I answered that I was very sure I liked it 
passably well; I was not joking. And so I went home to my 
bed, and left him to pick his way through the darkness and the 
mud to Brighton, — or Bright-town, — Avhich place he would reach 
some time in the morning. 

Any prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man 
makes indifferent all times and i:)laces. The place where that 
may occur is always the same, and indescribably pleasant to all 
our senses. For the most part we allow only outlying and tran- 
sient circumstances to make our occasions. They are, in fact, 
the cause of our distraction. Nearest to all things is that power 
which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are 
continually being executed. Next to us is not the workman 
whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the 
workman whose work we are. 

"How vast and profound is the influence of the subtile })owers 
of Heaven and of Earth !" 



146 WALDEN 

"We seek to perceive tliem, and we do not see them ; we seek 
to hear them, and we do not hear them ; identified with the sub- 
stance of things, they cannot be separated from them." 

"They cause that in all the universe men purify and sanctify 
their hearts, and clothe themselves in their holiday garments to 
offer sacrifices and oblations to their ancestors. It is an ocean 
of subtile intelligences. They are everywhere, above us, on our 
left, on our right; they environ us on all sides." 

We are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little 
interesting to me. Can we not do without the society of our 
gossips a little while under these circumstances, — have our own 
thoughts to cheer us? Confucius says truly, "Virtue does not 
remain as an abandoned orphan; it must of necessity have 
neighbors." 

With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. 
By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from 
actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, 
go by us like a torrent. We are not wholly involved in Nature. 
I may be either the driftwood in the stream, or Indra in the 
sky looking down on it. I may be affected by a theatrical exhi- 
bition; on the other hand, I may not he affected by an actual 
event which appears to concern me much more. I only know 
myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, of thoughts 
and affections ; and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which 
I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However 
intense my experience, I. am conscious of the presence of any 
criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, 
but spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it ; and 
that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the 
tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a 
kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he 
was concerned. This doubleness may easily make us poor neigh- 
bors and friends sometimes. 

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. 



SOLITUDE 147 

To be in eompauy, even with the best, is soon wearisome and 
dissij^ating'. I love to be alone. 1 never found the companion 
that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most 
part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we 
stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always 
alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by 
the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. 
The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cam- 
bridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert. The 
farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing* 
or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is emploj^ed; 
but when he comes, home at night he cannot sit down in a room 
alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can 
"see the folks," and recreate, and as he thinks remunerate, him- 
self for his day's solitude; and hence he wonders how the stu- 
dent can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day 
without ennui and "the blues" ; but he does not realize that the 
student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and 
chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks 
the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it 
may be a more condensed form of it. 

Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short inter- 
vals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each 
other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other 
a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are. We have to 
agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, 
to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not 
come to open war. We meet at the postoffice, and at the sociable, 
and about the fireside every night ; we live thick and are in each 
other's way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we 
thus lose some respect for one another. Certainly less frequency 
would suffice for all important and hearty communications. Con- 
sider the girls in a factory, — never alone, hardly in their dreams. 
It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to a square . 



148 WALDEN 

mile, as where I live. The value of a man is not in his skin, that 
we should touch him. 

I have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying of famine 
and exliaustion at the foot of a tree, whose loneliness was 
relieved by the grotesque visions with which, owing to bodily 
weakness, his diseased imagination surrounded him, and which 
he believed to be real. So also, owing to bodily and mental 
health and strength, we may be continually cheered by a like 
but more normal and natural society, and come to know that we 
are never alone. 

I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in 
the morning, when nobody calls. Let me suggest a few com- 
parisons, that some one may convey an idea of my situation. 
I am no more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so 
loud, or than Walden Pond itself. What company has that 
lonely lake, I pray? And yet it has not the blue devils, but 
the blue angels in it, in the azure tint of its waters. The sun is 
alone, except in thick weather, when there sometimes appear to 
be two, but one is a mock sun. God is alone, — but the devil, he 
is far from being alone ; he sees a great deal of company ; he is 
legion. I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion 
in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a humble- 
bee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, 
or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a 
January thaw, or the first spider in a new house. 

T have occasional Adsits in the long winter evenings, when the 
snow falls fast and the wind howls in the wood, from an old 
settler and original proprietor, who is reported to have dug 
Walden Pond, and stoned it, and fringed it with pine woods; 
who tells me stories of old time and of new eternity; and be- 
tween us we manage to pass a cheerful evening with social mirth 
and pleasant views of things, even without apples or cider, — a 
most wise and humorous friend, whom I love much, who keeps 
himself more secret than ever did Goffe or Whalley ; and though 



SOLITUDE 149 

he is thought to be dead, none can show where he is buried. An 
elderly dame, too, dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most 
l^ersons, in whose odorous herb garden I love to stroll some- 
times, gathering simples and listening to her fables; for she 
has a genius of unequaled fertility, and her memory runs back 
farther than mythology, and she can tell me the original of 
every fable, and on what fact every one is founded, for the 
incidents occurred when she was young. A ruddy and lusty old 
dame, who delights in all weathers and seasons, and is likelj^ to 
outlive all her children yet. 

The indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature, — of 
sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter, — such health, 
such cheer, they afford forever! and such sympathy have they 
ever with our race, that all Nature would be affected, and the 
sun's brightness fade, and the winds would sigh humanely, and 
the clouds rain tears, and the woods shed their leaves and put 
on mourning in midsummer, if any man should ever for a just 
cause giieve. Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am 
I not partly leaves and vegetable mold myself? 

What is the pill which will keep us well, serene, contented? 
Not my or thy gTeat-grandfather's, but our gi-eat-grandmother 
Nature's universal, vegetable, botanic medicines, by which she 
has kept herself young always, outlived so many old Parrs in 
her day, and fed her health with their decaying fatness. For 
my panacea, instead of one of those quack vials of a mixture 
dipped from Acheron and the Dead Sea, which come out of 
those long shallow black-schooner-looking wagons which we 
sometimes see made to carry bottles, let me have a draught of 
undiluted morning air. Morning air ! If men will not drink of 
this at the fountain-head of the day, why, then, we must even 
bottle up some and sell it in the shops, for the benefit of those 
who have lost their subscription ticket to morning time in this 
world. But remember, it will not keep quite till noonday even 
in the coolest cellar, but drive out the stopples long ere that 



150 WALDEN 

and follow westward the steps of Aurora. I am no worshiper 
of Hygeia, who was the daughter of that old herb-doetor ^seu- 
lajnus, and who is represented on monuments holding a serpent 
in one hand, and in the other a cup out of which the serpent 
sometimes drinks; but rather of Hebe, cupbearer to Jupiter, 
Avho was the daughter of Juno and wild lettuce, and who had 
the power of restoring gods and men to the vigor of youth. She 
was probably the only thoroughly sound-conditioned, healthy, 
and robust young lady that ever walked the globe, and wherever, 
she came it was spring. 



VI 

VISITORS 

I think that I love society as much as most, and am ready 
enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any 
full-blooded man that comes in my way. I am naturally no 
hermitj but might possibly sit out the sturdiest frequenter of 
the bar-room, if my business called me thither. 

I had three chairs in my house : one for solitude, two for 
friendship, three for societj^. When visitors came in larger and 
unexpected numbers, there was but the third chair for them all, 
but they generally economized the room by standing up. It is 
surprising how many great men and women a small house will 
contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their 
bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without 
being aware that we had come very near to one another. Many 
of our houses, both public and private, with their almost innu- 
merable apartments, their huge halls and their cellars for the 
storage of wines and other munitions of peace, appear to me 
extravagantly large for their inhabitants. They are so vast and 
magnificent that the latter seem to be only vermin which infest 
them. I am surprised when the herald blows his summons 
before some Tremont or Astor or Middlesex House, to see come 
creeping out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous 
mouse, which soon again slinks into some hole in the pavement. 

One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a 
house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my 
guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. 
You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and 
run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet 

151 



152 WALDEN 

of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet 
motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it 
reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plow out again through 
the side of his head. Also, our sentences wanted room to 
unfold and form their columns in the interval. Individuals, 
like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, 
even a considerable neutral ground, between them. I have found 
it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a comi:)anion on 
the opposite side. In my house we were so near that we could 
not begin to hear, — we could not speak low enough to be heard ; 
as when you throw two stones into calm water so near that they 
break each other's undulations. If we are merely loquacious 
and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near togetlier, 
cheek by jowl, and feel each other's breath; but if we speak 
reservedly and thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that 
all animal heat and moisture may have a chance to evaporate. 
If we would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each 
of us which is without, or above, being spoken to, we must not 
only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot 
possibly hear each other's voice in any case. Referred to this 
standard, speech is for the convenience of those who are hard 
of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say 
if we have to shout. As the conversation began to assume a 
loftier and grander tone, we gradually shoved our chairs farther 
apart till they touched the Avail in oj^posite corners, and then 
commonly there was not room enough. 

My "best" room, however, my withdrawing room, always 
ready for company, on whose carpet the sun rarely fell, was the 
pine wood behind my house. Thither in summer days, Avhen 
distingTiished guests came, I took them, and a priceless domestic 
swept the floor and dusted the furniture and kept the things in 
order. 

If one guest came he sometimes partook of my frugal meal 
and it was no interruption to conversation to be stirring a hasty- 



VISITORS 153 

pudding, or watching the rising and maturing of a loaf of bread 
in the ashes, in the meanwhile. But if twenty came and sat in 
ray house, there was nothing said about dinner, though there 
might be bread enough for two, more than if eating were a 
forsaken habit; but we naturally practiced abstinence; and this 
was never felt to be an offense against hospitality, but the most 
]n-oper and considerate course. The waste and decay of physical 
life, which so often needs repair, seemed miraculously retarded 
in such a case, and the vital vigor stood its gTound. I could 
entertain thus a thousand as well as twenty; and if any ever 
went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they 
found me at home, they may depend upon it that I sympathized 
with them, at least. So easy is it, though many housekeepers 
doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the 
old. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give. 
For my own part, I was never so effectually deterred from 
frequenting a man's house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, 
as by the parade one made about dining me, which I took to be 
a very polite and roundabout hint never to trouble him so again. 
I think I shall never revisit those scenes. I should be proud to 
have for the motto of my cabin those lines of Spenser which 
one of my visitors inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf for a card : 

Arrived there, the little house they fill, 

Ne looke for entertainment where none was; 

Rest is their feast, and all things at their will : 
The noblest mind the best contentment has. 

When Winslow, afterward governor of the Plj^mouth Colony, 
went with a companion on a visit of ceremony to Massasoit on 
foot through the woods, and arrived tired and hungry at his 
lodge, they were well received by the king, but nothing was 
said about eating that day. When the night arrived, to quote 
their own words, — "He laid us on the bed with himself and his 
wife, they at the one end and we at the other, it being only 



154 WALDEN 

plank, laid a foot from the ground, and a thin mat upon them. 
Two more of his chief men, for want of room, pressed by and 
upon us ; so that we were worse weary of our lodging than of 
our journey." At one o'clock the next day Massasoit "brought 
two fishes that he had shot," about thrice as big as a bream; 
"these being boiled, there were at least forty looked for a share 
in them. The most ate of them. This meal only we had in two 
nights and a day; and had not one of us bought a partridge, 
we had taken our journey fasting." Fearing that they would be 
light-headed for want of food and also sleep, owing to "the 
savages' barbarous singing (for they used to sing themselves 
asleep)," and that they might get home Avhile they had strength 
to travel, they departed. As for lodging, it is true they were 
but poorly entertained, though what they found an inconve- 
nience was no doubt intended for an honor; but as far as eating 
was concerned, I do not see how the Indians could have done 
better. They had nothing to eat themselves, and they were wiser 
than to think that apologies could supply the place of food to 
their guests; so they drew their belts tighter and said nothing 
about it. Another time when Winslow visited them, it being a 
season of plenty with them, there was no deficiency in this 
respect. 

As for men, they will hardly fail one anywhere. I had more 
visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period of 
my life ; I mean that I had some. I met several there under 
more favorable circumstances than I could anywhere else. But 
fcAver came to see me upon trivial business. In this respect, my 
comjDany was winnowed by my mere distance from town. I had 
withdrawn so far within the great ocean of solitude, into which 
the rivers of society empty, that for the most part, so far as my 
needs were concerned, only the finest sediment was deposited 
around me. Besides, there were wafted to me e\ddences of 
unexplored and uncultivated continents on the other side. 

Who should come to my lodge this morning but a true 



VISITORS 155 

Homeric or Paphlagoiiian man, — he had so suitable and poetic 
a name that I am sorry I cannot print it here, — a Canadian, a 
wood-chopper and post-maker, who can hole fifty posts in a day, 
who made his last supper on a woodchuck which his dog had 
caug'ht. He, too, has heard of Homer, and, "if it were not for 
books," would "not know what to do rainy days," though per- 
haps he has not read one wholly through for many rainy seasons. 
Some priest who could pronounce the Greek itself taught him to 
read his verse in the testament in his native parish far away; 
and now I must translate to him, while he holds the book, 
Achilles' reproof to Patroclus, for his sad countenance. — "Why 
are you in tears, Patroclus, like a young girl?" — 

Or have you alone heard some news from Phtliia? 
They say that Menoetius lives yet, son of Actor, 
And Peleus lives, sou of -^acus, among the Myrmidons, 
Either of whom having died, we should greatly grieve. 

He says, "That's good." He has a great bundle of w^hite-oak 
bark under his arm for a sick man, gathered this Sunday morn- 
ing. "I suppose there's no harm in going after such a thing 
today," says he. To him Homer was a great writer, though what 
his writing was about he did not know. A more simple and 
natural man it would be hard to find. Vice and disease, which 
cast such a somber moral hue over the world, seemed to have 
hardly any existence for him. He was about twenty-eight years 
old, and had left Canada and his father's house a dozen years 
before to work in the States, and earn money to buy a farm 
with at last, perhaps in his native country. He was cast in the 
coarsest mold ; a stout but sluggish body, yet gracefully carried, 
with a thick sunburnt neck, dark bushy hair, and dull sleepy 
blue eyes, which were occasionally lit up with expression. He 
wore a flat gray cloth cap, a dingy wool-colored greatcoat, and 
cowhide boots. He was a great consumer of meat, usually 
carrying his dinner to his work a couple of miles past my 



156 WALDEN" 

house, — for he chopped all summer, — in a tin pail ; cold meats, 
often cold woodchucks, and coffee in a stone bottle which dan- 
gled by a string from his belt ; and sometimes he offered me a 
drink. He came along early, crossing my beanfield, though with- 
out anxiety or haste to get to his work, such as Yankees exhibit. 
He wasn't a-going to hurt himself. He didn't care if he only 
earned his board. Frequently he would leave his dinner in the 
bushes, when his dog had caught a woodchuck by the way, and 
go back a mile and a half to dress it and leave it in the cellar of 
the house where he boarded, after deliberating first for half an 
hour whether he could not sink it in the pond safely till night- 
fall, — loving to dwell long upon these themes. He would say, 
as he went by in the morning: "How thick the pigeons are! 
If working every day were not ray trade, I could get all the 
meat I should want by hunting, — pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits, 
partridges, — by gosh ! I could get all I should want for a week 
in one day." 

He was a skilful chopper, and indulged in some flourishes and 
ornaments in his art. He cut his trees level and close to the 
ground, that the sprouts which came up afterward might be 
more vigorous and a sled might slide over the stumps; and 
instead of leaving a whole tree to support his corded wood, he 
would pare it away to a slender stake or splinter which you could 
break off with your hand at last. 

He interested me because he was so quiet and solitary and so 
happy withal: a well of good humor and contentment which 
overflowed at his eyes. His mirth was without alloy. Some- 
times I saw him at his work in the woods, felling trees, and he 
would greet me with a laugh of inexpressible satisfaction, and a 
salutation in Canadian French, though he spoke English as well. 
When I approached him he would suspend his work, and with 
half-suppressed mirth lie along the trunk of a pine which he 
had felled, and, peeling off the inner bark, roll it up into a ball 
and chew it while he laughed and talked. Such an exubernnce 



VISITORS 157 

of animal spirits had he that he sometimes tumbled down and 
rolled on the ground with laughter at anything which made him 
think and tickled him. Looking round upon the trees he would 
exclaim, — "By George! I can enjoy myself well enough here 
chopping ; I want no better sport." Sometimes, when at leisure, 
he amused himself all day in the woods with a pocket pistol, 
firing salutes to himself at regular intervals as he walked. In 
the winter he had a fire by which at noon he warmed his coffee 
in a kettle ; and as he sat on a log to eat his dinner the chicka- 
dees would sometimes come round and alight on his arm and 
peck at the potato in his fingers ; and he said that he "liked to 
have the little fellers about him." 

In him the animal man chiefly was developed. In physical 
endurance and contentment he was cousin to the pine and the 
rock. I asked him once if he was not sometimes tired at night, 
after working all day; and he answered with a sincere and 
serious look, "Gorrappit, I never was tired in my life." But 
the intellectual and what is called spiritual man in him were 
slumbering as in an infant. He had been instructed only in 
that innocent and ineffectual way in which the Catholic priests 
teach the aborigines, by which the pupil is never educated to 
the degree of consciousness, but only to the degree of trust and 
reverence, and a child is not made a man, but kept a child. 
When Nature made him, she gave him a strong body and con- 
tentment for his portion, and propped him on every side with 
reverence and reliance, that he might live out his threescore 
years and ten a child. He was so genuine and unsophisticated 
that no introduction would serve to introduce him, more than if 
you introduced a woodchuck to your neighbor. He had got to 
find him out as you did. He would not play any part. Men paid 
him wages for work, and so helped to feed and clothe him ; but 
he never exchanged opinions with them. He was so simply iand 
naturally humble — if he can be called humble who never aspires 
— that humility was no distinct quality in him, nor could he 



158 WALDEN 

conceive of it. Wiser men were demigods to him. If you told 
him that such a one was coming, he did as if he thought that 
anything so grand would expect nothing of himself, but take all 
the responsibility on itself, and let him be forgotten still. He 
never heard the sound of praise. He particularly reverenced 
the writer and the preacher. Their performances were miracles. 
When I told him that I wrote considerably, he thought for a long 
time that it was merely the handwriting which I meant, for he 
could write a remarkably good hand himself. I sometimes found 
the name of his native parish handsomely written in the snow 
by the highway, with the proper French accent, and knew that 
he had i^assed. I asked him if he ever wished to write his 
thoughts. He said that he had read and written letters for those 
who could not, but he never tried to write thoughts, — no, he 
could not, he could not tell what to put first, it would kill him, 
and then there was spelling to be attended to at the same itime ! 

I heard that a distinguished wise man and reformer asked 
him if he did not want the world to be changed ; but heanswered 
with a chuckle of surprise in his Canadian accent, not knowing 
that the question had ever been entertained before, "No, I like 
it well enough." It would have suggested many things to a phi- 
losopher to have dealings with him. To a stranger he appeared 
to know nothing of things in general ; yet I sometimes saw in 
him a man whom I had jiot seen before, and I did not know 
whether he was as wise as Shakspeare or as simply ignorant as 
a child, whether to susjDect him of a fine poetic consciousness or 
of stupidity. A townsman told me that when he met him saun- 
tering through the village in his small close-fitting cap, and 
whistling to himself, he reminded him of a prince in disguise. 

His only books were an almanac and an arithmetic, in which 
last he was considerably expert. The former was a sort of cyelo- 
pasdia to him, which he supposed to contain an abstract of 
human knowledge, as indeed it does to a considerable extent. 
I loved to sound him on the various reforms of the day, and he 



VISITORS 159 

iiQver failed to look at them in the most simple and practical 
light. He had never heard of such things before. Could he do 
without factories? I asked. He had worn the home-made Ver- 
mont gray, he said, and that was good. Could he dispense with 
tea and coffee? Did this country aftord any beverage besides 
water? He had soaked hemlock leaves in water and drunk it, 
and thought that was better than water in warm weather. When 
I asked him if he could do without money, he showed the con- 
venience of money in such a way as to suggest and coincide with 
the most j^hiiosophical accounts of the origin of this institution, 
and the very derivation of the word pecunia. If an ox were 
his i3roperty, and he wished to get needles and thread at the 
store, he thought it would be inconvenient, and impossible soon, 
to go on mortgaging some portion of the creature each time to 
that amount. He could defend many institutions better than 
any philosopher, because, in describing them as they concerned 
him, he gave the true reason for their prevalence, and specula- 
tion had not suggested to him any other. At another time, hear- 
ing Plato's definition of a man, — a biped without feathers, — 
and that one exhibited a cock plucked and called it Plato's man, 
he thought it an important difference that the knees bent the 
wrong way. He would sometimes exclaim: "How I love to 
talk! By George, I could talk all day!" I asked him once, 
when I had not seen him for many months, if he had got a new 
idea this summer. "Good Lord," said he, "a man that has to 
work as I do, if he does not forget the ideas he has had, he will 
do well. Maybe the man you hoe with is inclined to race; then, 
by gorry, your mind must be there; you think of weeds." He 
would sometimes ask me first, on such occasions, if I had made 
any improvement. One winter day I asked him if he was always 
satisfied with himself, wishing to suggest a substitute within 
him for the priest without, and some higher motive for living. 
"Satisfied !" said he; "some men are satisfied with one thing, and 
some with another. One man, perhaps, if he has got enough. 



I 



160 WALDEN 

will be satisfied to sit all day with his back to the fire and his 
belly to the table, by George !" Yet I never, by any maneuver- 
ing, could get him to take the spiritual view of things; the 
highest that he appeared to conceive of was a simple expe- 
diency^, such as you might expect an animal to appreciate ; and 
this, practically, is true of most men. If I suggested any im- 
provement in his mode of life, he merely answered, without 
expressing any regTet, that it was too late. Yet he thoroughly 
believed in honesty and the like virtues. 

There was a certain positive originality, however slight, to 
be detected in him, and I occasionally observed that he was 
thinking for himself and expressing his own opinion, a phe- 
nomenon so rare that I would any day walk ten miles to observe 
it, and it amounted to the reorigination of many of the institu- 
tions of society. Though he hesitated, and perhaps failed to 
express himself distinctly, he always had a presentable thought 
behind. Yet his thinking was so primitive and immersed in his 
animal life, that, though more promising than a merely learned 
man's, it rarely ripened to anything which can be reported. He 
suggested that there might be men of genius in the lowest grades 
of life, however permanently humble and illiterate, who take 
their own view always, or do not pretend to see at all ; who are 
as bottomless even as Walden Pond was thought to be, though 
they may be dark and muddy. 

Many a traveler came out of his way to see me and the inside 
of my house, and, as an excuse for calling, asked for a glass of 
water. I told them that I drank at the pond, and pointed thither, 
offering to lend them a dijDper. Far off as I lived, I was not 
exempted from that annual visitation which occurs, methinks, 
about the first of April, when everybody is on the move ; and I 
had my share of good luck, though there were some curious 
specimens among my visitors. Half-witted men from the alms- 
house and elsewhere came to see me ; but I endeavored to make 



VISITOES 161 

them exercise all the wit they had, and make their confessions 
to me ; in such cases making wit the theme of our conversation ; 
and so was compensated. Indeed, I found some of them to be 
wiser than the so-called overseers of the poor and selectmen of 
the town, and thought it was time that the tables were turned. 
With respect to wit, I learned that there was not much differ- 
ence between the half and the whole. One daj^, in particular, an 
inoffensive, simple-minded pauper, whom with others T had often 
seen used as fencing stuff, standing or sitting on a bushel in the 
fields to keep cattle and himself from straying, visited me, and 
expressed a wish to live as I did. He told me, with the utmost 
simplicity and truth, quite superior, or rather inferior, to any- 
thing that is called humility, that he was "deficient in intellect." 
These were his words. The Lord had made him so, yet he sup- 
posed the Lord cared as much for him as for another. "I have 
always been so," said he, "from my childhood; I never had much 
mind; I was not like other children; I am weak in the head. 
It was the Lord's will, I suppose." And there he was to prove 
the truth of his words. He was a metaphysical puzzle to me. I 
have rarely met a fellow-man on such promising ground, — it was 
so simple and sincere and so true, all that he said. And, true 
enough, in proportion as he appeared to humble himself was he 
exalted. I did not know at first but it was the result of a wise 
policy. It seemed that from such a basis of truth and frank- 
ness as the poor weak-headed pauper had laid, our intercourse 
might go forward to something better than the intercourse of 
sages. 

I had some guests from those not reckoned commonly among 
the town's poor, but who should be ; who are among the world's 
poor, at any rate; guests who appeal, not to your hospitality, 
but to your Jiospitalality; who earnestly wish to be helped, and 
preface their appeal with the information that they are resolved, 
for one thing, never to help themselves. I require of a visitor 
that he be not actually starving, though he may have the very 



162 WALDEN 

best appetite in the world, however he got it. Objects of charity 
are not guests. Men who did not know when their visit had 
terminated, though I went about my business again, answering 
them from greater and greater remoteness. Men of almost every 
degree of wit called on me in the migrating season. Some who 
had more wits than they knew what to do with ; runaway slaves 
with plantation manners, who listened from time to time, like 
the fox in the fable, as if they heard the hounds a-baying on 
their track, and looked at me beseechingly, as much as to say, — 

Christian, will you send me backf 

One real runaway slave, among the rest, whom I helped to for- 
ward toward the north star. Men of one idea, like a hen with 
one chicken, and that a duckling ; men of a thousand ideas, and 
unkempt heads, like those hens which are made to take charge 
of a hundred chickens, all in pursuit of one bug, a score of them 
lost in every morning's dew, — and become frizzled and mang>' 
in consequence ; men of ideas instead of legs, a sort 'of intellec- 
tual centipede that made you crawl all over. One man proposed 
a book in which visitors should write their names, as at the 
White Mountains ; but, alas, I have too good a memory to make 
that necessary. 

I could not but notice some of the peculiarities of my visitors. 
Girls, and boys and j^oung women generally seemed glad to be 
in the woods. They looked in the i)ond and at the flowers, and 
imjiroved their time. Men of business, even farmers, thought 
only of solitude and employment, and of the great distance at 
which I dwelt from something or other; and though they said 
that they loved a ramble in the woods occasionally, it was 
obvious that they did not. Restless committed men, whose time 
was all taken up in getting a living or keeping it; ministers who 
spoke of God as if they enjoyed a monopoly of the subject, who 
could not bear all kinds of opinions; doctors, lawyers, uneasy 
housekeepers who pried into my cupboard and bed when I was 



VISITORS 163 

out, — how came Mrs. to know that my sheets were not as 

clean as hers?— young men who had ceased to be young, and 
had conchided that it was safest to follow the beaten track of 
the professions, — all these generally said that it was not pos- 
sible to do so much good in my position. Ay! there was the 
rub. The old and infirm and the timid, of Avhatever age or sex, 
thought most of sickness, and sudden accident and death; to 
them life seemed full of danger, — what danger is there if you 
don't think of any? — and they thought that a prudent man 
would carefully select the safest position, where Dr. B. might 
be on hand at a moment's warning. To them the village was 
literally a com-munity, a league for mutual defense, and you 
would suppose that they would not go a-huekleberrying without 
a medicine chest. The amount of it is, if a man is alive, there 
is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be 
allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin 
with. A man sits as many risks as he runs. Finally, there were 
the self-styled reformers, the greatest bores of all, who thought 
that I was forever singing, — 

This is the house that I built; 

This is the man that lives in the house that I built ; 

but they did not know that the third line was, — 

These are the folks that worry the man 
That lives in the house that I built. 

I did not fear the hen-harriers, for I kept no chickens; but I 
feared the men-harriers rather. 

I had more cheering visitors than the last. Children come 
a-berrying, railroad men taking a Sunday morning walk in 
clean shirts, fishermen and hunters, poets and philosophers, in 
short, all honest pilgrims, who came out to the woods for free- 
dom's sake, and really left the village behind, I was ready to 
greet with, — "Welcome, Englishmen! welcome, Englishmen!'* 
for I had had communication with that race. 



VII 
THE BEANFIELD 

Meanwhile my beans, the length of whose rows, added together, 
was seven miles already planted, were impatient to be hoed, for 
the earliest had grown considerably before the latest were in the 
ground; indeed, they were not easily to be put off. What was 
the meaning of this so steady and self-respecting, this small 
Herculean labor, I knew not. I came to love my rows, my beans, 
though so many more than I wanted. They attached me to the 
earth, and so I got strength like Antaeus. But why should I 
raise them? Only Heaven knows. This was my curious labor 
all summer, — to make this portion of the earth's surface, which 
had yielded only cinquefoil, blackberries, johnswort, and the 
like, before, sweet wild fruits and pleasant flowers, produce 
instead this pulse. What shall I learn of beans or beans of me? 
I cherish them, I hoe them, early and late I have an eye to them ; 
and this is my day's work. It is a fine broad leaf to look on. 
My auxiliaries are the dews and rains which water this dry soil, 
and what fertility is in the soil itself, which for the most jDart 
is lean and effete. My enemies are worms, cool days, and most 
of all woodchucks. The last have nibbled for me a quarter of an 
acre clean. But what right had I to oust johnswort and the 
rest, and break up their ancient herb garden? Soon, however, 
the remaining beans Avill be too tough for them, and go forward 
to meet new foes. 

When I was four years old, as I well remember, I was brought 
from Boston to this my native town, through these very woods 
and this field, to the pond. It is one of the oldest scenes stamped 

164 



THE BEANFIELD 165 

on my memory. And now tonight my flute has waked the echoes 
over that very water. The pines still stand here older tlian I ; 
or, if some have fallen, I have cooked my supper with their 
stumps, and a new growth is rising all around, preparing an- 
other aspect for new infant eyes. Almost the same johnswort 
springs from the same perennial root in this pasture, and even 
I have at length helped to clothe that fabulous landscape of my 
infant dreams, and one of the results of my presence and influ- 
ence is seen in these bean leaves, corn blades, and potato vines. 

I planted about two acres and a half of upland; and it was 
only about fifteen years since tlie land was cleared, and I m.yself 
had got out two or three cords of stumps, I did not give it any 
manure; but in the course of the summer it aj^peared by the 
aiTow-heads which I turned up in hoeing, that an extinct nation 
had anciently dwelt here and planted corn and beans ere white 
men came to clear the land, and so, to some extent, had exhausted 
the soil for this very crop. 

Before yet any woodchuck or squirrel had run across the road, 
or the sun had got above the shrub-oaks, while all the dew was 
on, though the farmers warned me against it, — I would advise 
you to do all your work if possible while the dew is on, — I began 
to level the ranks of haughty weeds in my beanfield and throw 
dust upon their heads. Early in the morning I worked bare- 
footed, dabbling like a plastic artist in the dewy and crumbling- 
sand, but later in the day the sun blistered my feet. There the 
sun lighted me to hoe beans, pacing slowly backward and for- 
ward over that yellow gravelly upland, between the long green 
rows, fifteen rods, the one end terminating in a shrub-oak copse 
where I could rest in the shade, the other in a blackberry field 
where the green berries deepened their tints by the time I had 
made another bout. Removing the weeds, putting fresh soil 
about the bean stems, and encouraging this weed which I had 
sown, making the yellow soil express its summer thought in bean 
leaves and blossoms rather than in wormwood and piper and 



IQQ WALDEN 

millet grass, making the earth say beans instead of grass, — this 
Avas my daily work. As I had little aid from horses or cattle, 
or hired men or boys, or improved implements of husbandry, I 
was much slower, and became much more intimate with my 
beans than usual. But labor of the hands, even when pursued 
to the verge of drudgery, is j^erhaps never the worst form of 
idleness. It has a constant and imperishable moral, and to the 
scholar it yields a classic result. A very agricola lahoriosus was 
I to travelers bound westward through Lincoln and Wayland 
to nobody knows where; they sitting at their ease in gigs, 
with elbows on knees, and reins loosely hanging in festoons; I 
the home-staying laborious native of the soil. But soon my 
homestead was out of their sight and thought. It was the only 
open and cultivated field for a great distance on either side of 
the road ; so they made the most of it ; and sometimes the man 
in the field heard more of travelers' gossip and comment than 
was meant for his ears: "Beans so late! peas so late!" — for I 
continued to plant when others had begun to hoe, — the minis- 
terial husbandman had not suspected it. "Corn, my boy, for 
fodder; corn for fodder." "Does he live there?" asks the black 
bonnet of the gray coat ; and the hard-featured farmer reins up 
his grateful dobbin to inquire what you are doing where he sees 
no manure in the furrow, and recommends a little chij:) dirt, or 
any little waste stuff, or it may be ashes or plaster. But here 
were two acres and a half of furrows, and only a hoe for cart 
and two hands to draw it, — there being an aversion to other 
carts and ho.rses, — and chip dirt far* away. Fellow-travelers as 
they rattled by compared it aloud with the fields which they 
had passed, so that I came to know how I stood in the agi'icul- 
tural world. This was one field not in Mr. Coleman's report. 
And, by the way, who estimates the value of the crop which 
Nature yields in the still wilder fields unimproved by man? The 
crop of English hay is carefully weighed, the moisture calcu- 
lated, the silicates and the potash; but in all dells and pond 



THE BEANFIELD 16? 

holes in the woods and pastures and swamps gi'ows a rich and 
various crop only unreaped by man. Mine was, as it were, the 
connecting link between wild and cultivated fields; as some 
states are civilized, and others half-civilized, and others savage 
or barbarous, so my field was, though not in a bad sense, a half- 
cultivated field. They were beans cheerfully returning to their 
wild and primitive state that I cultivated, and my hoe plaj^ed 
the Bans des Vaches for them. 

Near at hand, upon the topmost spray of a birch, sings the 
brown thrasher — or red mavis, as some love to call him — all the 
morning, glad of your society, that would find out another 
farmer's field if yours were not here. "While you are planting 
the seed, he cries, — "Droj) it, drop it, — cover it up, cover it up, — 
pull it up, pull it up, pull it up." But this was not corn, and 
so it was safe from such enemies as he. You may wonder what 
his rigmarole, his amateur Paganini performances on one string 
or on twenty, have to do with your planting, and yet prefer it 
to leached ashes or plaster. It was a cheap sort of top dressing 
in which I had entire faith. 

As I drew a still fresher soil about the rows with my hoe, I 
disturbed the ashes of unchronicled nations who in primeval 
years lived under these heavens, and their small implements of 
war and hunting were brought to the light of this modern day. 
They lay mingled with other natural stones, some of which bore 
the marks of having been burned by Indian fires, and some by 
the sun, and also bits of pottery and glass brought hither by the 
recent cultivators of the soil. When my hoe tinkled against the 
stones, that music echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an 
accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and im- 
measurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I 
that hoed beans; and I remembered with as much pity as pride, 
if I remembered at all, my acquaintances who had gone to the 
city to attend the oratorios. The night-hawk circled overhead 
in the sunny afternoons — for I sometimes made a day of it — 



168 WALDEN 

like a mote in the eye, or in heaven's eye, falling from time to 
time with a swoop and a sound as if the heavens were rent, torn 
at last to very rags and tatters, and yet a seamless cope re- 
mained; small imps that fill the air and lay their eggs on the 
ground in bare sand or rocks on the tops of hills, where few 
have found them; graceful and slender, like ripples caught up 
from the pond, as leaves are raised by the wind to float in the 
heavens; such kindredship is in Nature. The hawk is aerial 
brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys, those his 
perfect air-inflated wings ansAvering to the elemental unfledged 
pinions of the sea. Or sometimes I watched a pair of hen- 
hawks circling high in the sky, alternately soaring and descend- 
ing, approaching and leaving one another, as if they were the 
embodiment of my own thoughts. Or I was attracted by the 
passage of wild pigeons from this wood to that, with a slight 
quivering winnowing sound and carrier haste; or from under 
a rotten stump my hoe turned up a sluggish, portentous, and 
outlandish spotted salamander, a trace of Egypt and the Nile, 
yet our contemporary. When I paused to lean on my hoe, these 
sounds and sights I heard and saw anywhere in the row, a part 
of the inexhaustible entertainment which the country offers. 

On gala days the town fires its great guns, which echo like 
popguns to these woods, and some waifs of martial music occa- 
sionally penetrate thus far. To me, away there in my bean- 
field at the other end of the town, the big guns sounded as if 
a puff ball had burst ; and when there was a military turnout 
of which I was ignorant, I have sometimes had a vague sense 
all the day of some sort of itching and disease in the horizon 
as if some eruption would break out there soon, either scar- 
latina or canker-rash, until at length some more favorable puff 
of wind, making haste over the fields and up the Wayland road, 
brought me information of the "trainers." It seemed by the 
distant hum as if somebody's bees had swarmed, and that the 
neighbors, according to Virgil's advice, by a faint tintinnab- 



THE BEANFIELD 169 

uliim upon the most sonorous of their domestic utensils, were 
endeavoring to call them down into the hive again. And when 
the sound died quite away, and the hum had ceased, and the 
most favorable breezes told no tale, I knew that they had got 
the last drone of them all safely into the Middlesex hive, and 
that now their minds were bent on the honey with which it was 
smeared. 

I felt proud to know that the liberties of Massachusetts and 
of our fatherland were in such safe keeping ; and as I turned to 
my hoeing again I was filled with an inexpressible confidence, 
and pursued my labor cheerfully with a calm trust in the future. 

When there were several bands of musicians, it sounded as if 
all the village was a vast bellows, and all the buildings expanded 
and collapsed alternately with a din. But sometimes it was a 
really noble and inspiring strain that reached these woods, and 
the trumpet that sings of fame, and I felt as if I could spit 
a Mexican with a good relish, — for why should we always stand 
for trifles? — and looked round for a woodchuck or a skunk to 
exercise my chivalry upon. These martial strains seemed as far 
away as Palestine, and reminded me of a march of crusaders 
in the horizon, with a slight tantivy and tremulous motion of 
the elm-tree tops which overhang the village. This was one 
of the great days; thougfi the sky had from my clearing only 
the same everlastingly great look that it wears daily, and I saw 
no difference in it. 

It was a singular experience, that long acquaintance which I 
cultivated with beans, what with planting, and hoeing, and har- 
vesting, and threshing, and picking over, and selling them, — the 
last was the hardest of all, — I might add eating, for I did taste. 
I was determined to know beans. When they were growing, I 
used to hoe from five o'clock in the morning till noon, and com- 
monly sjDent the rest of the day about other affairs. Consider 
the intimate and curious acquaintance one makes Avith various 
kinds of weeds, — it will bear some iteration in the account, for 



irjQ WALDEN 

there was no little iteration in the labor, — disturbing their deli- 
cate organizations so ruthlessly, and making such invidious dis- 
tinctions with his hoe, leveling whole ranks of one species, and 
sedulously cultivating another. That's Roman wormwood, — 
that's pigweed, — that's sorrel, — that's piper-grass, — have at him, 
chop him up, turn his roots upward to the sun, don't let him 
have a fiber in the shade; if you do, he'll turn himself t'other 
side up and be as green as a leek in two days. A long war, not 
with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who had sun and 
rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans saw me come to 
their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their 
enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead. Many a lusty 
crest-waving Hector, that towered a whole foot above his crowd- 
ing comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust. 

Those summer days which some of my contemporaries devoted 
to the fine arts in Boston and Rome, and others to contempla- 
tion in India, and others to trade in London or New York, I 
thus, with the other farmers of New England, devoted to hus- 
bandry. Not that I wanted beans to eat, for I am by nature 
a Pythagorean, so far as beans are concerned, whether they 
mean porridge or voting, and exchanged them for rice; but, 
perchance, as some must work in fields if only for the sake of 
tropes and expression, to serve a parable-maker one day. It 
was on the whole a rare amusement, which, continued too long, 
might have become a dissipation. Though I gave them no 
manure, and did not hoe them all once, I hoed them unusually 
well as far as I went, and was paid for it in the end, "there 
being in truth," as Evelyn says, "no compost or Isetation what- 
soever comparable to this continual motion, repastination, and 
turning of the mold with the spade." "The earth," he adds 
elsewhere, "especially if fresh, has a certain magnetism in it, 
by which it attracts the salt, power, or virtue (call it either) 
which gives it life, and is the logic of all the labor and stir we 
keep about it, to sustain us ; all dungings and other sordid tem- 



THE BEANFIELD 171 

perings being but the vicars suceedaneous to this improvement." 
Moreover, this being one of those "worn-out and exhausted lay 
fields which enjoy their sabbath/' had perchance, as Sir Kenelm 
Digby thinks likely, attracted "vital spirits" from the air. I 
harvested twelve bushels of beans. 

But to be more particular, for it is complained that Mr. Cole- 
man has reported chiefly the expensive experiments of gentlemen 
farmers, my outgoes were, — 

For a hoe $ 0.54 

Plowing, harrowing, and furrowing ' 7.50 Too much 

Beans for seed 3.12i^ 

Potatoes for seed '. 1.33 

Peas for seed 40 

Turnip seed 06 

White line for crow fence 02 

Horse cultivator and boy three hours 1.00 

Horse and cart to get crop 75 

In all $14.72i/> 

My income was (patrem familias vendacem, nou emacem esse 
oportet), from 

Nine bushels and twelve quarts of beans sold $16.94 

Five bushels large potatoes 2.50 

Nine bushels small potatoes 2.25 

Grass 1.00 

Stalks 75 

In all $23.44 

Leaving a pecuniary profit, as I have elsewhere said, of . . . .$8.71% 

This is the result of my experience in raising beans. Plant 
the common small white bush bean about the first of June, in 
rows three feet by eighteen inches apart, being careful to select 
fresh round and unmixed seed. First look out for worms, and 
supply vacancies by planting anew. Then look out for wood- 
chucks, if it is an exposed place, for they will nibble off the 



172 WALDEN 

earliest tender leaves almost clean as they go ; and again, when 
the young tendrils make their appearance, they have notice of it, 
and will shear them off with both buds and young pods, sitting 
erect like a squirrel. But above all, harvest as early as possible, 
if you would escape frosts and have a fair and salable crop ; you 
may save much loss by this means. 

This further experience also I gained. I said to myself, I will 
not plant beans and corn with so much industry another sum- 
mer, but such seeds, if the seed is not lost, as sincerity, truth, 
simplicity, faith, innocence, and the like, and see if they will not 
grow in this soil, even with less toil and manurance, and sustain 
me, for surely it has not been exhausted for these crops. Alas ! 
I said this to myself; but now another summer is gone, and 
another, and another, and I am obliged to say to you. Reader, 
that the seeds which I planted, if indeed they were the seeds of 
those virtues, were wormeaten or had lost their vitality and so 
did not come up. Commonly men will only be brave' as their 
fathers were brave, or timid. This generation is very sure to 
plant corn and beans each new year precisely as the Indians did 
centuries ago, and taught the first settlers to do, as if there were 
a fate in it. I saw an old man the other day, to my astonish- 
ment, making the holes with a hoe for the seventieth time at 
least, and not for himself to lie down in ! But why should not 
the New Englander try new adventures, and not lay so much 
stress on his grain, his potato, and grass crop, and his orchards, 
— raise other crops than these ? Why concern ourselves so much 
about our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about a 
new generation of men ? We should really be fed and cheered 
if when we met a man w^e were sure to see that some of the quali- 
ties which I have named, Avhich we all prize more than those 
other productions, but which are for the most part broadcast 
and floating in the air, had taken root and grown in him. Here 
comes such a subtile and ineffable quality, for instance, as truth 
or justice, though the slightest amount or new variety of it, 



THE BEANFIELD 173 

along the road. Our ambassadors should be instructed to send 
home such seeds as these, and Congress help to distribute them 
over all the land. We should never stand upon ceremony 
with sincerity. We should never cheat and insult and banish 
one another by our meanness, if there were present the kernel 
of worth and friendliness. We should not meet thus in haste. 
Most men I do not meet at all, for they seem not to have time ; 
they are busy about their beans. We would not deal with a 
man thus plodding ever, leaning on a hoe or a spade as a staff 
between his work, not as a mushroom, but partially risen out 
of the earth, something more than erect, like swallows alighted 
and walking on the ground : — 

And as he spake, his Avings would now and then 
Spread, as he meant to fly, then close again, 

so that we should suspect that we might be conversing with an 
angel. Bread may not always nourish us; but it always does 
us good, it even takes stiffness out of our joints, and makes us 
supple and buoyant, when we knew not what ailed us, to recog- 
nize any generosity in man or Nature, to share any unmixed and 
heroic joy. 

Ancient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, that hus- 
bandry Avas once a sacred art ; but it is pursued with irreverent 
haste and heedlessness by us, our object being to have large 
farms and large crops merely. We have no festival, nor pro- 
cession, nor ceremony, not excepting our Cattle-shows and so- 
called Thanksgivings, by which the farmer expresses a sense of 
the sacredness of his calling, or is reminded of its sacred origin. 
It is the premium and the feast which tempt him. He sacri- 
fices not to Ceres and the terrestrial Jove, but to the infernal 
Plutus rather. By avarice and selfishness, and a groveling habit, 
from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, 
or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is 
deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads 



174 WALDEN 

the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber. Cato 
says that the profits of agriculture are particularly pious or just 
{maximeque plus qucestus), and according to Varro, the old 
Romans "called the same earth Mother and Ceres, and thought 
that they who cultivated it led a pious and useful life, and that 
they alone were left of the race of King Saturn." 

We are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cultivated 
fields and on the jDrairies and forests without distinction. They 
all reflect and absorb his rays alike, and the former make but 
a small part of the glorious picture which he beholds in his daily 
course. In his view the earth is all equally cultivated like a 
garden. Therefore we should receive the benefit of his light and 
heat with a corresponding trust and magnanimity. What though 
I value the seed of these beans, and harvest that in the fall of 
the year ? This broad field which I have looked at so long looks 
not to me as the principal cultivator, but away from me to 
influences more genial to it, which water and make it green. 
These beans have results which are not harvested by me. Do 
they not grow for woodchucks partly? The ear of wheat (in 
Latin spica, obsoletely speca, from spe, hope) should not be the 
only hope of the husbandman; its kernel or grain [granum, 
from gerendo, bearing) is not all that it bears. How, then, can 
our harvest fail? Shall I not rejoice also at the abundance. of 
the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds ? It matters 
little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer's barns. 
The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels 
manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this 
year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all 
claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not 
only his first but his last fruits also, 



VIII 

THE VILLAGE 

After lioeing, or perhaps reading and writing, in the fore- 
noon, I usually bathed again in the pond, swimming across one 
Df its coves for a stint, and washed the dust of labor from my 
person, or smoothed out the last wrinkle which study had made, 
and for the afternoon was absolutely free. Every day or two 
E strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is 
incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to 
QQouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in 
homeopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the 
rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs. As I walked in the 
w^oods to see the birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village 
to see the men and boys ; instead of the wind among the pines, 
I heard the carts rattle. In one direction from my house there 
was a colony of muskrats in the river meadows ; under the grove 
of elms and buttonwoods in the other horizon was a village of 
busy men, as curious to me as if they had been prairie dogs, 
each sitting at the mouth of its burrow, or running over to a 
neighbor's to gossip. I went there frequently to observe their 
habits . The village appeared to me a great news room ; and on 
one side to support it, as once at Redding & Company's on 
State Street, they kept nuts and raisins, or salt and meal and 
other groceries. Some have such a vast appetite for the former 
commodity, that is, the news, and such sound digestive organs, 
that they can sit forever in public avenues without stirring, and 
let it simmer and whisper through them like the Etesian winds, 
or as if inhaling ether, it only producing numbness and insensi- 

175 



I 



176 WALDEN 



bility to pain, — otherwise it would be often painful to hear, 
without affecting the consciousness. I hardly ever failed, wl^ 
I rambled through the village, to see a row of such worthier, 
either sitting on a ladder sunning themselves, with their bodi- 
inclined forward and their eyes glancing along the line this -u 
and that, from time to time, with a voluptuous expression, 
else leaning against a barn with their hands in their pocket-, 
like caryatides, as if to prop it up. They, being commonly out 
of doors, heard whatever was in the wind. These are the coar- 
est mills, in which all gossip is first rudely digested or crackel 
up before it is emptied into finer and more delicate hoppf- 
within doors. I observed that the vitals of the village w 
the grocery, the bar-room, the postoffiee, and the bank ; and, ; - 
a necessary part of the machinery, they kept a bell, a big gin. 
and a fire-engine, at convenient places; and the houses were ^ ) 
arranged as to make the most of mankind, in lanes and fronting,' 
one another, so that every traveler had to run the gantlet, aul 
every man, woman, and child might get a lick at him. Of coursi^, 
those who were stationed nearest t^ the head of the line, wbeie 
they could most see and be seen, and have the first blow at hin, 
paid the highest prices for their places; and the few straggling' 
inhabitants in the outskirts, where long gaps in the line beganj 
to occur, and the traveler could get over walls or turn aside intO] 
cow paths, and so escape, paid a very slight ground or window' 
tax. Signs were hung out on all sides to allure him; some to 
catch him by the appetite, as the tavern and victualing cellar;! 
some by the fancy, as the dry goods store and the jeweler's ; audi 
others by the hair or the feet or the skirts, as the barber, tliej 
shoemaker, or the tailor. Besides, there was a still more ter-j 
rible standing invitation to call at every one of these houses,! 
and company expected about these times. For the most part I 
escaped wonderfully from these dangers, either by proceeding 
at once boldly and without deliberation to the goal, as is recom- 
mended to those who run the gantlet, or by keeping my thoughts' 



THE VILLAGE 177 

on high things, like Orpheus, who, "loudly singing the praises 
of the gods to his lyre, drowned the voices of the Sirens, and 
kept out of danger." Sometimes I bolted suddenly, and nobody 
could tell my whereabouts, for I did not stand much about grace- 
fulness, and never hesitated at a gap in the fence. I was even 
accustomed to make an irruption into some houses, where I was 
well entertained, and after learning the kernels and very last 
sieve-ful of news, what had subsided, the prospects of war and 
peace, and whether the world was likely to hold together much 
longer, I was let out through the rear avenues, and so escaped to 
the woods again. 

It was very pleasant, when I stayed late in town, to launch 
myself into the night, especially if it was dark and tempestuous, 
and set sail from some bright village parlor or lecture room, 
with a bag of rye or Indian meal upon my shoulder, for my 
snug harbor in the woods, having made all tight without and 
withdrawn under hatches with a merry crew of thoughts, leaving 
only my outer man at the helm, or even tying up the helm when 
it was plain sailing. I had many a genial thought by the cabin 
r fire "as I sailed." I was never cast away nor distressed in any 
1^ weather, though I encountered some severe storms. It is darker 
in the woods, even in common nights, than most suppose. I fre- 
quently had to look up at the opening between the trees above 
the path in order to learn my route, and, where there was no 
cart path, to feel with my feet the faint track which I had worn, 
or steer by the known relation of particular trees which I felt 
with my hands, passing between two pines, for instance, not 
more than eighteen inches apart, in the midst of the woods, 
invariably in the darkest night. Sometimes, after coming home 
thus late in a dark and muggy night, when my feet felt the path 
which my eyes could not see, dreaming and absent-minded all 
the way, until I was aroused by having to raise my hand to lift 
the latch, I have not been able to recall a single step of my walk, 
and I have thought that perhaps my body would find its way 



.X78 WALDEN 

home if its master should forsake it, as the hand finds its way 
to the mouth without assistance. Several times, when a visitor 
chanced to stay into evening, and it proved a dark night, I was 
obliged to conduct him to the cart path in the rear of the house, 
and then point out to him the direction he was to pursue, and 
in keeping which he was to be guided rather by his feet than his 
eyes. One very dark night I directed thus on their way two 
young men who had been fishing in the jDond. They lived about 
a mile off through the woods, and were quite used to the route. 
A day or two after one of them told me that they wandered 
about the greater part of the night, close by their own jDremises, 
and did not get home till toward morning, by which time, as 
there had been several heavy showers in the meanwhile, and the 
leaves were very wet, they were drenched to their skins. I have 
heard of many going astray even in the village streets, when the 
darkness was so thick that you could cut it with a knife, as the 
saying is. Some who live in the outskirts, having come to town 
a-shopping in tlieir wagons, have been obliged to put up for the 
night ; and gentlemen and ladies making a call have gone half a 
mile out of their way, feeling the sidewalk only with their feet, 
and not knowing when they turned. It is a surprising and mem- 
orable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any 
time. Often in a snow storm, even by day, one will come out 
upon a well-known road and yet find it impossible to tell which 
way leads to the village. Though he knows that he has traveled 
it a thousand times, he cannot recognize a feature in it, but it is 
as strange to him as if it were a road in Siberia. By night, of 
course, the perplexity is infinitely greater. In our most trivial 
walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like 
pilots by certain well-known beacons and head-lands, and if we 
go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bear- 
ing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely 
lost, or turned round, — for a man needs only to be turned round 
once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost, — do we appre- 



THE VILLAGE 179 

ciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature. Every man lias 
to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes, 
whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in 
other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find 
ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our 
relations. 

One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went 
to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler's, I was seized and 
put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay 
a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the state, which buys and 
sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its 
senate-house. I had gone down to the woods for other purposes. 
But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with 
their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong 
to their desperate odd-fellow society. It is true, I might have 
'resisted forcibly with more or less effect, might have run "amok" 
against society ; but I j:* referred that society should run "amok" 
against me, it being the desperate party. However, I was 
released the next day, obtained my mended shoe, and returned 
to the woods in season to get my dinner of huckleberries on 
Fair-Haven Hill. I was never molested by any person but those 
who represented the state. I had no lock nor bolt but for the 
desk which held my pajiers, not even a nail to put over my latch 
or windows. I never fastened my door night or day, though 
I was to be absent several days ; not even when the next fall I 
spent a fortnight in the woods of Maine. And yet my house 
was more respected than if it had been surrounded by a file of 
soldiers. The tired rambler could rest and warm himself by my 
fire, the literary amuse himself with the few books on my table, 
or the curious, by opening my closet door, see what was left of 
my dinner, and what prospect I had of a supper. Yet, though 
many people of every class came this way to the pond, I suffered 
no serious inconvenience from these sources, and I never missed 
anything but one small book, a volume of Homer, which per- 



180 WALDEN 

haps was improperly gilded, and this I trust a soldier of our 
camp has found by this time. I am convinced that if all men 
were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would 
be unknown. These take place only in communities where some 
have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough. 
The Pope's Homers would soon get properly distributed. — 

Nee bella fiierunt, 
Faginus astabat diim scyphus ante dapes. 

Nor wars did men molest, 
When only beechen bowls were in request. 

"You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ 
punishments'? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. 
The virtues of a superior man are like the wind ; the virtues of 
a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind 
passes over it, bends," 



IX 

THE PONDS 

Sometimes, having had a surfeit of human society and gossip, 
and worn out all my village friends, I rambled still farther west- 
ward than I habitually dwell, into yet more unfrequented parts 
of the town, "to fresh woods and pastures new," or, while the 
sun was setting, made my supper of huckleberries and blue- 
berries on Fair-Haven Hill, and laid up a store for several days. 
The fruits do not yield their true flavor to the purchaser of 
them, nor to him who raises them for the market. There is but 
one way to obtain it, yet few take that way. If you would know 
the flavor of huckleberries, ask the cow-boy or the partridge. 
It is a vulgar error to suppose that you have tasted huckle- 
berries who never plucked them. A huckleberry never reaches 
Boston ; they have not been known there since they grew on her 
three hills. The ambrosial and essential i^art of the fruit is lost 
with the bloom which is rubbed oft in the market cart, and they 
become mere jDrovender. As long as Eternal Justice reigns, not 
one innocent huckleberry can be transported thither from the 
country's hills. 

Occasionally, after my hoeing was done for the day, I joined 
some impatient companion who had been fishing on the pond 
since morning, as silent and motionless as a duck or a floating 
leaf, and, after practicing various kinds of philosophy, had con- 
cluded commonly, by the time I arrived, that he belonged to the 
ancient sect of Coenobites. There was one older man, an excel- 
lent fisher and skilled in all kinds of woodcraft, who was pleased 
to look upon my house as a building erected for the convenience 

181 



182 WALDEN 

of fishermen ; and I was equally pleased when be sat in my door- 
way to arrange his lines. Onee in a while we sat together on 
the jDond, he at one end of the boat, and I at the other; but not 
many words passed between us, for he had gTOwn deaf in his 
later years, but he occasionally hummed a psalm, which har- 
monized well enough with my philosophy. Our intercourse was 
thus altogether one of unbroken harmony, far more pleasing to 
remember than if it had been carried on by speech. When, as 
was commonly the case, I had none to commune with, I used to 
raise the echoes by striking with a paddle on the side of my boat, 
filling the surrounding woods with circling and dilating sound, 
stirring them up as the keeper of a menagerie his wild beasts, 
until I elicited a growl from every wooded vale and hill side. 

In warm evenings I frequently sat in the boat playing the 
flute, and saw the jDcrch, which I seemed to have charmed, hover- 
ing around me, and the moon traveling over the ribbed bottom, 
which was strewed with the wrecks of the forest. Formerly I 
had come to this pond adventurously, from time to time, in dark 
summer nights, with a companion, and making a fire close to the 
water's edge, which we thought attracted the fishes, we caught 
l^outs with a bunch of worms strung on a thread ; and when we 
had done, far in the night, threw the burning brands high into 
the air like sky-rockets, which, coming down into the pond, were 
quenched with a loud hissing, and we were suddenly groping ii\ 
total darkness. Through this, whistling a tune, we took our 
way to the haunts of men again. But now I had made my home 
by the shore. 

Sometimes, after staying in a village i^arlor till the family 
had all retired, I have returned to the woods, and, partly with a 
view to the next day's dinner, spent the hours of midnight fish- 
ing from a boat by moonlight, serenaded by owls and foxes, and 
hearing, from time to time, the creaking note of some unknown 
])ird close at hand. These experiences were very memorable and 
valuable to me, — anchored in forty feet of water, and twenty or 



THE PONDS 183 

thirty rods from the shore, surrounded sometimes by thousands 
of small perch and shiners, dimpling the surface with their tails 
in the moonlight, and communicating by a long flaxen line with 
mysterious nocturnal fishes which had their dwelling forty feet 
below, or sometimes dragging sixty feet of line about the pond 
as I drifted in the gentle night breeze, now and then feeling a 
slight vibration along it, indicative of some life prowling about 
its extremity, of dull uncertain blundering purpose there, and 
slow to make up its mind. At length you slowly raise, pulling 
hand over hand, some horned pout squeaking and squirming to 
the upper air. It was very queer, especially in dark nights, 
when your thoughts had wandered to vast and cosmogonal 
themes in other spheres, to feel this faint jerk, which came to 
interrupt your dreams and link you to Nature again. It 
seemed as if I might next east my line upward into the air, 
as well as downward into this element which was scarcely more 
dense. Thus I caught two fishes as it were with one hook. 

The scenery of Walden is on a humble scale, and, though very 
beautiful, does not approach to grandeur, nor can it much con- 
cern one who has not long frequented it, or lived by its shore; 
yet this pond is so remarkable for its depth and purity as to 
merit a particular description. It is a clear and deep green well, 
half a mile long and a mile and three quarters in circumference, 
and contains about sixty-one and a half acres; a perennial 
spring in the midst of pine and oak woods, without any visible 
inlet or outlet except by the clouds and evaporation. The sur- 
rounding hills rise abruptly from the water to the height of 
forty to eighty feet, though on the southeast and east tliey attain 
to about one hundred and one hundred and fifty feet respect- 
ively, within a quarter and a third of a mile. They are exclu- 
sivel}^ woodland. All our Concord waters have two colors at 
least, one when viewed at a distance, and another, more proper, 
close at hand. The first depends more on the light, and follows 
the sky. In clear weather, in summer, they appear blue at a 



184 WALDEN 

little distance, especially if agitated, and at a great distance all 
appear alike. In stormy weather they are sometimes of a dark 
slate color. The sea, however, is said to be blue one day and 
green another without any jDerceptible change in the atmosphere. 
I have seen our river, when, the landscape being covered with 
snow, both water and ice were almost as green as gi-ass. Some 
consider blue "to be the color of pure water, whether liquid or 
solid." But, looking directly down into our waters from a boat, 
they are seen to be of very different colors. Walden is blue at 
one time and gi-een at another, even from the same point of 
view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of 
the color of both. Viewed from a hill top it reflects the color of 
the sky, but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore 
where you can see the sand, then a light green, which gradually 
deepens to a uniform dark green in the body of the pond. In 
some lights, viewed even from a hill top, it is of a vivid green 
next the shore. Some have referred this to the reflection of the 
verdure ; but it is equally green there against the railroad sand- 
bank, and in the spring, before the leaves are expanded, and it 
may be simply the result of the prevailing blue mixed with the 
yellow of the sand. Such is the color of its iris. This is that 
portion, also, where in the spring, the ice being warmed by the 
heat of the sun reflected from the bottom, and also transmitted 
through the earth, melts first and forms a narrow canal about 
the still frozen middle. Like the rest of our waters, when much 
agitated, in clear weather, so that the surface of the waves may 
reflect the sky at the right angle, or because there is more light 
mixed with it, it appears at a little distance of a darker blue 
than the sky itself; and at such a time, being on its surface, 
and looking ^vith divided vision, so as to see the reflection, I 
have discerned a matchless and indescribable light blue, such 
as watered or changeable silks and sword blades suggest, more 
cerulean tha i the sky itself, alternating with the original dark 
green on the opposite sides of the waves, which last appeared 



THE PONDS 185 

but muddy in comparison. It is a vitreous greenish blue, as I 
remember it, like those patches of the winter sky seen through 
cloud vistas in the west before sundown. Yet a single glass of 
its water held up to the light is as colorless as an equal quantity 
of air. It is well-known that a large plate of glass will have a 
green tint, owing, as the makers say, to its "body," but a small 
piece of the same will be colorless. How large a body of 
Walden water would be required to reflect a green tint I have 
never proved. The water of our river is black or a very dark 
brown to one looking directly down on it, and like that of most 
ponds, imparts to the body of one bathing in it a yellowish 
tinge ; but this water is of such crystalline purity that the body 
of the bather appears of an alabaster whiteness, still more 
unnatural, which, as the • limbs are magnified and distorted 
withal, produces a monstrous effect, making fit studies for a 
Michael Angelo. 

The water is so transparent that the bottom can easily be 
discerned at the depth of twenty-five or thirty feet. Paddling 
over it, you may see many feet beneath the surface the schools 
of perch and shiners, perhaps only an inch long, yet the former 
easily distinguished by their transverse bars, and you think that 
they must be ascetic fish that find a subsistence there. Once, in 
the winter, many years ago, when I had been cutting holes 
through the ice in order to catch pickerel, as I stepped ashore I 
tossed my axe back on to the ice, but, as if some evil genius had 
directed it, it slid four or five rods directly into one of the holes, 
where the water was twenty-five feet deep. Out of curiosity, 
r lay down on the ice and looked through the hole, until I saw 
the axe a little on one side, standing on its head, with its helve 
erect and gently swaying to and fro with the pulse of the pond ; 
and there it might have stood erect and swaying till in the course 
of time the handle rotted off, if I had not disturbed it. Making 
another hole directly over it with an ice chisel which I had, and 
cutting down the longest birch which I could find in the neigh- 



186 WALDEN 

borhood with my knife, I made a slip-noose, which I attached 
to its end, and, letting it down carefully, passed it over the knob 
of the handle, and drew it by a line along the birch, and so 
pulled the axe out again. 

The shore is composed of a belt of smooth rounded white 
stones like paving stones, excepting one or two short sand 
beaches, and is so steep that in many places a single l6ap will 
carry you into water over your head; and were it not for its 
remarkable transparency, that would be the last to be seen of its 
bottom till it rose on the opposite side. Some think it is bot- 
tomless. It is nowhere muddy, and a casual observer would 
say that there were no weeds at all in it; and of noticeable 
plants, except in the little meadows recently overflowed, which 
do not properly belong to it, a closer scrutiny does not detect 
a flag nor a bulrush, nor even a lily, yellow or white, but only 
a few small heart-leaves and potamogetons, and perhaps a 
Avater-target or two ; all which however a bather might not per- 
ceive; and these plants are clean and bright like the element 
they grow in. The stones extend a rod or two into the water, 
and then the bottom is pure sand, except in the deepest parts, 
where there is usually a little sediment, probably from the decay 
of the leaves, which have been wafted on to it so many succes- 
sive falls, and a bright green weed is brought up on anchors 
even in midwinter. 

We have one other pond just like this. White Pond in Nine 
Acre Corner, about two and a half miles westerly ; but, though 
I am acquainted with most of the ponds within a dozen miles of 
this center, I do not know a third of this pure and well-like 
character. Successive nations perchance have drunk at, ad- 
mired, and fathomed it, and passed away, and still its water is 
green and pellucid as ever. Not an intermitting spring! Per- 
haps on that spring morning when Adam and Eve were driven 
out of Eden Walden Pond was already in existence, and even 
then breaking up in a gentle spring rain accompanied with mist 



THE PONDS 187 

and a southerly wind, and covered with myriads of ducks and 
geese, which had not heard of the fall, when still such pure lakes 
sufficed them. Even then it had commenced to rise and fall, and 
had clarified its waters and colored them of the hue they now 
wear, and obtained a patent of heaven to be the only Walden 
Pond in the world and distiller of celestial dews. Who knows 
in how many unremembered nations' literatures this has been 
the Castalian Fountain ? or what nymphs presided over it in the 
Golden Age? It is a gem of the first water which Concord 
wears in her coronet. 

Yet perchance the first who came to this well have left some 
trace of their footsteps. I have been surprised to detect 
encircling the pond, even where a thick wood has just been cut 
down on the shore, a narrow shelf-like path in the steep hill 
side, alternately rising and falling, approaching and receding 
from the water's edge, as old probably as the race of man here, 
worn by the feet of aboriginal hunters, and still from time to 
time unwittingly trodden by the present occupants of the land. 
This is particularly distinct to one standing on the middle of the 
pond in winter, just after a light snow has fallen, appearing as 
a clear undulating white line, unobscured by weeds and twigs, 
and very obvious a quarter of a mile off in many places whert 
in summer it is hardly distinguishable close at hand. The snow 
reprints it, as it were, in clear white type alto-relievo. The 
ornamented grounds of villas which will one day be built here 
may still preserve some trace of this. 

The pond rises and falls, but whether regularly or not, and 
within what period, nobody knows, though, as usual, many 
pretend to know. It is commonly higher in the winter and 
lower in the summer, though not corresponding to the general 
wet and dryness. I can remember when it was a foot or two 
lower, and also when it was at least five feet higher, than when 
I lived by it. There is a narrow sand-bar running into it, very 
deep water on one side, on which I helped boil a kettle of chow- 



188 WALDEN 

der, some six rods from the main shore, about the year 1824, 
which it has not been possible to do for twenty-five years ; and 
on the other hand, my friends used to listen with incredulity 
when I told them that a few years later I was accustomed to 
fish from a boat in a secluded cove in the woods, fifteen rods 
from the only shore they knew, which place was long since con- 
verted into a meadow. But the pond has risen steadily for two 
years, and now, in the summer of '52, is just five feet higher 
than when I lived there, or as high as it was thirty years ago, 
and fishing goes on again in the meadow. This makes a differ- 
ence of level, at the outside, of six or seven feet; and yet the 
water shed by the surrounding hills is insignificant in amount, 
and this overflow must be referred to causes which affect the 
deep springs. This same summer the pond has begun to fall 
again. It is remarkable that this fluctuation, whether periodical 
or not, appears thus to require many years for its accomplish- 
ment. I have observed one rise and a part of two falls, and I 
expect that a dozen or fifteen years hence the water will again 
be as low as I have ever known it. Flints^ Pond, a mile east- 
ward, allowing for the disturbance occasioned by its inlets and 
outlets, and the smaller intermediate ponds also, sympathize 
with Walden, and recently attained their greatest height at the 
same time with the latter. The same is true, as far as my obser- 
vation goes, of White Pond. 

This rise and fall of Walden at long intervals serves this use 
at least : the water standing at this great height for a year or 
more, though it makes it difficult to walk around it, kills the 
shrubs and trees which have sprung up about its edge since the 
last rise, pitch-pines, birches, alders, aspens, and others, and, 
falling again, leaves an unobstructed shore; for, unlike many 
])onds, and all waters which are subject to a daily tide, its shore 
is cleanest when the water is lowest. On the side of the pond 
next my house, a row of pitch-pines fifteen feet high has been 
killed and tipped over as if by a lever, and thus a stop put to 



THE PONDS 189 

their encroachments; and their size indicates how many years 
have elapsed since the last rise to this height. By this fluctu- 
ation the pond asserts its title to a shore, and thus the shore is 
shorn, and the trees cannot hold it by right of possession. These 
are the lips of the lake on which no beard grows. It licks its 
chaps from time to time. When the water is at its height, the 
alders, willows, and maples send forth a mass of fibrous red 
roots several feet long from all sides of their stems in the water, 
and to the height of three or four feet from the ground, in the 
effort to maintain themselves ; and I have known the high blue- 
berry bushes about the shore, which commonly produce no fruit, 
bear an abundant crop under these circumstances. 

Some have been puzzled to tell how the shore became so reg- 
ularly paved. My townsmen have all heard the tradition, the 
oldest people tell me that they heard it in their youth, that 
anciently the Indians were holding a pow-wow upon a hill here, 
which rose as high into the heavens as the pond now sinks deep 
into the earth, and they used much profanity, as the story goes, 
though this vice is one of which the Indians were never guilty, 
and while they were thus engaged the hill shook and suddenly 
sank, and only one old squaw, named Walden, escaped, and 
from her the pond was named. It has been conjectured that 
when the hill shook these stones rolled down its side and became 
the present shore. It is very certain, at any rate, that once there 
was no pond here, and now there is one ; and this Indian fable 
does not in any respect conflict with the account of that ancient 
settler whom I have mentioned, who remembers so well when he 
first came here with his divining-rod, saw a thin vapor rising 
from the sward, and the hazel pointed steadily downward, and 
he concluded to dig a well here. As for the stones, many still 
think that they are hardly to be accounted for by the action of 
the waves on these hills ; but I observe that the surrounding hills 
are remarkably full of the same kind of stones, so that they have 
been obliged to pile them up in walls on both sides of the rail- 



190 WALDEN 

road cut nearest the pond ; and, moreover, there are most stones 
where the shore is most abrupt ; so that, unfortunately, it is no 
longer a mystery to me. I detect the paver. If the name was 
not derived from that of some English locality, — Saffron , 
Walden, for instance, — one might suppose that it was called, 
originally, Walled-in Pond. 

The pond was my well ready dug. For four months in the 
year its water is as cold as it is pure at all times; and I think 
that it is then as good as any, if not the best, in the town. In the 
winter, all water which is exposed to the air is colder than 
springs and wells which are protected from it. The tempera- 
ture of the pond water which had stood in the room where I sat 
from five o'clock in the afternoon till noon the next day, the 
sixth of March, 1846, the thermometer having been up to 65° or 
70° some of the time, owing j^artly to the sun on the roof, was 
42°, or one degree colder than the water of one of the coldest 
wells in the village just drawn. The temperature of the Boiling 
Spring the same day was 45°, or the warmest of any water tried, 
though it is the coldest that I know of in summer, when, besides, 
shallow and stagnant surface water is not mingled with it. 
Moreover, in summer, Walden never becomes so warm as most 
water which is exposed to the sun, on account of its depth. In 
the warmest weather I usually placed a pailful in my cellar, 
where it became cool in the night, and remained so during the 
day ; though I also resorted to a spring in the neighborhood. It 
was as good when a week old as the day it was dipped, and had 
no taste of the pump. Whoever camps for a week in summer by 
the shore of a pond, needs only bury a pail of water a few feet 
deep in the shade of his camp to be independent of the luxury 
of ice. 

There have been caught in Walden, pickerel, one weighing 
seven pounds, to say nothing of another which carried off a reel 
with great velocity, which the fisherman safely set down at eight 
pounds because he did not see him, perch and pouts, some of 



THE PONDS 191 

each weighing over two pounds, shiners, ehivins or roach 
{Leuciscus pulchellus), a very few breams, and a couple of eels, 
one weighing four pounds, — I am thus particular because the 
weight of a fish is commonly its only title to fame, and these are 
the only eels I have heard of here; — also, I have a faint recol- 
lection of a little fish some five inches long, with silvery sides 
and a greenish back, somewhat dace-like in its character, which 
I mention here chiefly to link my facts to fable. Nevertheless, 
this i^ond is not very fertile in fish. Its pickerel, though not 
abundant, are its chief boast. I have seen at one time lying on 
the ice pickerel of at least three different kinds : a long and shal- 
low one, steel-colored, most like those caught in the river; a 
bright golden kind, with greenish reflections and remarkably 
deep, which is the most common here; and another, golden- 
colored, and shaped like the last, but peppered on the sides with 
small dark brown or black spots, intermixed with a few faint 
blood-red ones very much like a trout. The specific name reticu- 
latus would not apply to this; it should be guttatus rather. 
These are all very firm fish, and weigh more than their size 
promises. The shiners, pouts, and perch, also, and indeed all the 
fishes which inhabit this pond, are much cleaner, handsomer, 
and firmer fleshed than those in the river and most other ponds, 
as the water is purer, and they can easily be distinguished from 
them. Probably many ichthyologists would make new varieties 
of some of them. There are also a clean race of frogs and tor- 
toises, and a few mussels in it ; muskrats and minks leave their 
traces about it, and occasionally a traveling mud-turtle visits it. 
Sometimes, when I pushed off my boat in the morning, I dis- 
turbed a great mud-turtle which had secreted himself under the 
boat in the night. Ducks and geese frequent it in the spring 
and fall, the white-bellied swallows {Hirundo bicolor) skim over 
it, and the peetweets {Totanus macularius) "teter" along its 
stony shores all summer. I have sometimes disturbed a fish- 
hawk sitting on a white-pine over the water; but I doubt if it 



1^2 WALDEN 

is ever profaned by the wing of a gull, like Fair-Haven. At 
most, it tolerates one annual loon. These are all the animals 
of consequence which frequent it now. 

You may see from a boat, in calm weather, near the sandy 
eastern shore, where the water is eight or ten feet deep, and also 
in some other jDarts of the pond, some circular heaps half a 
dozen feet in diameter by a foot in height, ' consisting of small 
stones less than a hen's eog in size, where all around is bare 
sand. At first you wonder if the Indians could have formed 
them on the ice for anj^ purpose, and so, when the ice melted, 
they sank to the bottom ; but they are too regular and some of 
them plainly too fresh for that. They are similar to those found 
in rivers ; but as there are no suckers nor lampreys here, I know 
not by Avhat fish they could be made. Perhaps they are the 
nests of the chivin. These lend a pleasing mystery' to the 
bottom. 

The shore is irregular enough not to be monotonous. I have 
in my mind's eye the western indented with deep bays, the 
bolder northern, and the beautiful scalloped southern shore, 
where successive capes overlap each other and suggest unex- 
plored coves between. The forest has never so good a setting. 
nor is so distinctly beautiful, as when seen from the middle of a ] 
small lake amid hills which rise from the water's edge ; for the ] 
water in which it is reflected not only makes the best foreground 
in such a case, but, with its winding shore, the most natural and 
agreeable boundary to it. There is no rawness nor imperfec- 
tion in its edge there, as where the axe has cleared a part, or a 
cultivated field abuts on it. The trees have ample room to 
expand on the water side, and each sends forth its most vigor- 
ous branch in that direction. There Nature has woven a natural 
selvage, and the eye rises by just gradations from the lowj 
shrubs of the shore to the highest trees. There are few traces^, 
of man^s hand to be seen. The water laves the shore as it did^ 
a thousand years ago. 



THE PONDS 193 

A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive 
feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder 
measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next 
the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the 
wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows. 

Standing on the smooth sandy beach at the east end of the 
pond, in a calm September afternoon, when a slight haze 
makes the opposite shore line indistinct, I have seen whence 
came the expression, "the glassy surface of a lake." When you 
invert your head, it looks like a thread of finest gossamer 
stretched across the valley, and gleaming against the distant 
pine woods, separating one stratum of the atmosphere from 
another. You would think that you could walk dry under it to 
the opposite hills, and that the swallows which skim over might 
perch on it. Indeed, they sometimes dive below the line, as it 
were by mistake, and are undeceived. As you look over the 
pond westward you are obliged to employ both your hands to 
defend your eyes against the reflected as well as the true sun, 
for they are equally bright ; and if, between the two, you survey 
its surface critically, it is literally as smooth as glass, except 
'^M^here the skater insects, at equal intervals scattered over its 
i'whole extent, by their motions in the sun produce the finest 
^imaginable sparkle on it, or, perchance, a duck plumes itself, 
I or, as I have said, a swallow skims so low as to touch it. It may 
' be that in the distance a fish describes an arc of three or four 
feet in the air, and there is one bright flash where it emerges, 
and another where it strikes the water; sometimes the whole 
I silvery are is revealed; or here and there, perhaps, is a thistle- 
! down floating on its surface, which the fishes dart at and so 
dimple it again. It is like molten glass cooled but not con- 
gealed, and the few motes in it are pure and beautiful like the 
imperfections in glass. You may often detect a yet smoother 
and darker water, separated from the rest as if by an invisible 
cobweb, boom of the water nymphs, resting on it. From a hill 



.;[94 WALDEN 

top you can see a fish leap in almost any part ; for not a pickerel 
or sinner picks an insect from this smooth surface but it mani- 
festly disturbs the equilibrium of the whole lake. It is wonder- 
ful with what elaborateness this simple fact is advertised, — 
this piscine murder will out, — and from my distant perch I dis- 
tinguish the circling undulations when they are half a dozen 
rods in diameter. You can even detect a water-bug (Gyrinus) 
ceaselessly progressing over the smooth surface a quarter of a 
mile off; for they furrow the water slightly, making a conspicu- 
ous ripple bounded by two diverging lines, but the skaters glide 
over it without rippling it perceptibly. When the surface is 
considerably agitated there are no skaters nor water-bugs on it, 
but apparently, in calm daj^s, they leave their havens and adven- 
turously glide forth from the shore by short impulses till they 
completely cover it. It is a soothing employment, on one of 
those fine days in the fall when all the warmth of the sun is fully 
a;ipreciated, to sit on a stump on such a height as this, overlook- 
ing the pond, and study the dimpling circles which are inces- 
santly inscribed on its otherwise invisible surface amid the 
reflected skies and trees. Over this great expanse there is no 
disturbance but it is thus at once gently smoothed away and 
assuaged, as, when a vase of water is jarred, the trembling 
circles seek the shore and all is smooth again. iSTot a fish can 
leap or an insect fall on the pond but it is thus reported in 
circling dimples, in lines of beauty, as it were the constant 
welling up of its fountain, the gentle pulsing of its life, the 
heaving of its breast. The thrills of joy and thrills of pain are 
undistinguishable. How peaceful the phenomena of the lake! 
Again the works of man shine as in the spring. Ay, every leaf 
and twig and stone and cobweb sparkles now at mid-afternoon 
as when covered with dew in a spring morning. Every motion 
of an oar or an insect produces a flash of light ; and if an oar 
falls, how sweet the echo ! 

In such a day in September or October, Walden is a ])erfect 



THE PONDS 195 

forest mirror, set round with stones as precious to my eye as 
if fewer or rarer. Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same 
time so large, as a lake, perchance, lies on the surface of the 
earth. Sky water. It needs no fence. Nations come and go 
without defiling it. It is a mirror which no stone can crack, 
whose quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding Nature con- 
tinually repairs; no storms, no dust, can dim its surface ever 
fresh; — a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks, 
swept and dusted by the sun's hazy brush, — this the light dust- 
cloth, — which retains no breath that is breathed on it, but sends 
its own to float as clouds high above its surface, and be reflected 
in its bosom still. 

A field of w^ater betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is con- 
tinually receiving new life and motion from above. It is inter- 
mediate in its nature between land and sky. On land only the 
grass and trees wave, but the water itself is rippled by the wind. 
I see where the breeze dashes across it by the streaks or flakes of 
light. It is remarkable that we can look down on its surface. 
We shall, perhaps, look down thus on the surface of air at 
length, and mark where a still subtler spirit sweeps over it. 

The skaters and water-bugs finally disappear in the latter 
part of October, when the severe frosts have come; and then 
and in November, usually, in a calm day, there is absolutely 
nothing to ripple the surface. One November afternoon, in the 
calm at the end of a rain storm of several days' duration, when 
the sky was still completely overcast and the air was full of mist, 
I observed that the pond was remarkably smooth, so that it was 
difficult to distinguish its surface; though it no longer reflected 
the bright tints of October, but the somber November colors of 
the surrounding hills. Though I passed over it as gently as pos- 
sible, the slight undulations produced by my boat extended 
almost as far as I could see, and gave a ribbed appearance to the 
reflections. But, as I was looking over the surface, I saw here 
and there at a distance a faint glimmer, as if some skater insects 



196 WALDEN 

wliieli had escaped the frosts might be collected there, or, per- 
chance, the surface, being so smooth, betrayed where a spring 
welled up from the bottom. Paddling gently to one of these 
places, I was surprised to find myself surrounded by myriads 
of small perch, about five inches long, of a rich bronze color in 
the green water, sporting there and constantly rising to the 
surface and dimpling it, sometimes leaving bubbles on it. In 
such transparent and seemingly bottomless water, reflecting the 
clouds, I seemed to be floating through the air as in a balloon, 
and their swimming impressed me as a kind of flight or hover- 
ing, as if they were a compact flock of birds passing just be- 
neath my level on the right or left, their fins, like sails, set all 
around them. There were many such schools in the pond, 
apparently improving the short season before winter would 
draw an icy shutter over their broad skylight, sometimes giving 
to the surface an appearance as if a slight breeze struck it, or 
a few rain-drops fell there. When I approached carelessly and 
alarmed them, they made a sudden plash and rippling with their 
tails, as if one had struck the water with a brushy bough, and 
instantly took refuge in the depths. At length the wand rose, 
the mist increased, and the waves began to run, and the perch 
leaped much higher than before, half out of water, a hundred 
black points, three inches long, at once above the surface. Even 
as late as the fifth of December, one year, I saw some dimples 
on the surface, and thinking it was going to rain hard immedi- 
ately, the air being full of mist, I made haste to take my place 
at the oars and row homeward ; already the rain seemed rapidly 
increasing, though I felt none on my cheek, and I anticipated 
a thorough soaking. But suddenly the dimples ceased, for they 
were produced by the perch, which the noise of my oars had 
scared into the depths, and I saw their schools dimly disap- 
pearing; so I spent a dry afternoon after all. 

An old man who used to frequent this pond nearly sixty years 
ago, when it was dark with surrounding forests, tells me that 



THE PONDS ^ 197 

in those days he sometimes saw it all alive with ducks and other 
Wiiter fowl, and that there were many eagles about it. He came 
, here a-fishing, and used an old log canoe which he found on the 
shore. It was made of two white-pine log's dug out and pinned 
together, and was cut off square at the ends. It was very 
clumsy, but lasted a great many years before it became water- 
logged and perhaps sank to the bottom. He did not know whose 
,it was; it belonged to the pond. He used to make a cable for 
his anchor of strips of hickory bark tied together. An old man, 
a potter, who lived by the pond before the Revolution, told him 
once that there was an iron chest at the bottom, and that he had 
seen it. Sometimes it would come floating up to the shore ; but 
when you went toward it, it would go back into deep water and 
disappear. I was pleased to hear of the old log canoe, which 
took the place of an Indian one of the same material but more 
graceful construction, which perchance had first been a tree on 
the bank, and then, as it were, fell into the water, to float there 
for a generation, the most proper vessel for the lake. I remem- 
ber that when I first looked into these depths there were many 
large trunks to be seen indistinctly lying on the bottom, which 
I had either been blown over formerly, or left on the ice at the 
jilast cutting, when wood was cheaper; but now they have mostly 
I disappeared. 

j When I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was completely 

surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods, and in some 

of its coves grape vines had run over the trees next the water 

- and formed bowers under which a boat could pass. This hills' 

'which form its shores are so steep, and the woods on thenl were 

i then so high, that, as you looked down from the west end, it had 

! the appearance of an amphitheater for some kind of sylvan 

[spectacle. I have spent many an hour, when I was younger, 

j floating over its surface as the zephyr willed, having paddled 

'my boat to the middle, and lying on my back across the seats, 

in a summer forenoon, dreaming awake, until I was aroused by 



298 WALDEN 

the boat touching the sand, and I arose to see what shore my 
fates had impelled me to; days when idleness Avas the most 
attractive and productive industry. Many a forenoon have I 
stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of 
the day; for I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and 
summer days, and spent them lavishly; nor do I regret that I 
did not waste more of them in the workshop or the teacher's 
desk. But since I left those shores the wood-choppers have 
still further laid them waste, and now for many a year there 
will be no more rambling through the aisles of the wood, with 
occasional vistas through which you see the water. My Muse 
may be excused if she is silent henceforth. How can you expect 
the birds to sing when their groves are cut down ? 

Now the trunks of trees on the bottom, and the old log canoe, 
and the dark surrounding woods, are gone, and the villagers, 
who scarcely know where it lies, instead of going to the pond to 
bathe or drink, are thinking to bnng its water, which should 
be as sacred as the Ganges at least, to the village in a pipe, to 
wash their dishes with ! — to earn their Walden by the turning 
of a cock or drawing of a plug! That devilish Iron Horse, 
whose ear-rending neigh is heard throughout the town, has 
muddied the Boiling Spring with his foot, and he it is that has 
browsed off all the woods on Walden shore; that Trojan horse, 
with a thousand men in his belly, introduced by mercenary 
Greeks ! Where is the country's champion, the Moore of Moore 
Hall, to meet him at the Deep Cut and thrust an avenging lance 
between the ribs of the bloated pest. 

Nevertheless, of all the characters I have known, perhaps 
Walden wears best, and best preserves its purity. Many men 
have been likened to it, but few deserve that honor. Though 
the wood-choppers have laid bare first this shore and then that, 
and the Irish have built their sties by it, and the railroad has 
infringed on its border, and the ice-men have skimmed it once, 
it is itself unchanged, the same water which mv vouthful eves 



THE PONDS 199 

fell on; '»») Uie change is in me. It has not acquired one per- 
manent wriijkle after all its ripples. It is perennially young, 
and I may stand and see a swallow dip apparently to pick an 
insect from its surface as of yore. It struck me again tonight, 
as if I had not seen it almost daily for more than twenty 
years, — Why, here is Walden, the same woodland lake that I 
discovered so many years ago ; where a forest was cut down last 
winter another is sj"^ ringing up by its shore as lustily as ever ; the 
same thought is welling uji to its surface that was then ; it is the 
same liquid joy and happiness to itself and its Maker, ay, and 
it may be to me. It is the work of a brave man, surely, in whom 
there was no guile ! He rounded this water with his hand, deep- 
ened and clarified it in his thought, and in his will bequeathed 
it to Concord. I see by its face that it is visited by the same 
reflection; and I can almost say, Walden, is it you? 

It is no dream of mine, 

To ornament a line; 

I cannot come nearer to God and Heaven 

Than I live to Walden even. 

I am its stony shore, 

And the breeze that passes o 'er ; 

In the hollow of my hand 

Are its water and its sand, 

And its deepest resort 

Lies high in my thought. 

The cars never j^ause to look at it ; yet I fancy that the engi- 
neers and firemen and brakemen, and those passengers who have 
a season ticket and see it often, are better men for the sight. 
The engineer does not forget at night, or his nature does not, 
that he has beheld this vision of serenity and purity once at 
least during the day. Though seen but once, it helps to wash 
out State-street and the engine's soot. One proposes that it 
be called "God's Drop." 

I have said that Walden has no visible inlet nor outlet, but it 



200 WALDEN 

is on the one hand distantly and indirectly related to Flint's 
Pond, which is more elevated, by a chain of small ponds coming- 
from that quarter, and on the other directly and manifestly to 
Concord River, which is lower, by a similar chain of ponds 
through which in some other geological period it may have 
flowed, and by a little digging, which God forbid, it can be made 
to flow thither again. If by living thus reserved and austere, 
like a hermit in the woods, so long, it has acquired such wonder- 
ful purity, who would not regret that the comparatively impure 
waters of Flint's Pond should be mingled with it, or itself 
should ever go to waste its sweetness in the ocean wave? 

Flint's or Sandy Pond, in Lincoln, our greatest lake and 
inland sea, lies about a mile east of Walden. It is much larger, 
being said to contain one hundred and ninety-seven acres, and 
is more fertile in fish ; but it is comparatively shallow, and not 
remarkably pure. A walk through the woods thither was often 
my recreation. It was worth'the while, if only to feel the wind 
blow on your cheek freely, and see the waves run, and remem- 
ber the life of mariners. I went a-chestnutting there in the fall, 
on windy days, when the nuts were dropping into the water and 
were washed to my feet ; and one day, as I crept along its sedgy 
shore, the fresh spray blowing in my face, I came upon the 
moldering wreck of a boat, the sides gone, and hardly more 
than the impression of its flat bottom left amid the rushes ; yet 
its model was sharply defined, as if it were a large decayed pad, 
with its veins. It was as impressive a wreck as one could 
imagine on the sea-shore, and had as good a moral. It is by this 
time mere vegetable mold and undistinguishable pond shore, 
through which rushes and flags have pushed up. I used to 
admire the ripple marks on the sandy bottom, at the north end 
uf this pond, made firm and hard to the feet of the wader by the 
pressure of the water, and the rushes which grew in Indian file, 
i"». waving lines, corresponding to these marks, rank behind 



THE PONDS 201 

rank, as if the waves had planted them. There also I have 
found, in considerable quantities, curious balls, composed 
apparently of fine grass or roots, of pipewort perhaps, from 
half an inch to four inches in diameter, and perfectly spherical. 
These wash back and forth in shallow water on a sandy bottom, 
and are sometimes cast on the shore. They are either solid 
grass, or have a little sand in the middle. At first you would 
say that they were formed by the action of the waves, like a 
j:)ebble; yet the smallest are made of equally coarse materials, 
half an inch long, and they are produced only at one season of 
the year. Moreover, the waves, I suspect, do not so much con- 
struct as wear down a material which has already acquired con- 
sistency. They preserve their form when dry for an indefinite 
l)eriod. 

Flint's Pond! Such is the poverty of our nomenclature. 
What right had the unclean and stupid farmer, whose farm 
abutted on this sky water, whose shores he has ruthlessly laid 
bare, to give his name to it? Some skin-flint, who loved better 
the reflecting surface of a dollar, or a bright cent, in which he 
could see his own brazen face ; who regarded even the wild ducks 
which settled in it as trespassers ; his fingers grown into crooked 
and horny talons from the long habit of grasping harpy-like; 
---so it is not named for me. I go not there to see him nor to 
hear of him; who never saw it, who never bathed in it, who 
never loved it, who never protected it, who never spoke a good 
v;ord for it, nor thanked God that He had made it. Rather let 
it be named from the fishes that swim in it, the wild fowl or 
quadrupeds which frequent it, the wild flowers which grow by 
its shores, or some wild man or child the thread of whose history 
is interwoven with its own; not from him who could show no 
title to it but the deed which a like-minded neighbor or legisla- 
ture gave him, — him who thought only of its money value; 
Avhose presence perchance cursed all the shore; who exhausted 
the land around it, and would fain have exhausted the waters 



202 WALDEN 

within it, who regretted only that it was not English hay or 
cranberry meadow, — there was nothing to redeem it, forsooth, in 
his eyes, — and would have drained and sold it for the mud at 
its bottom. It did not turn his mill, and it was no privilege to 
him to behold it. I respect not his labors, his farm where every- 
thing has its price; who would cany the landscape, who would 
carry his God to market if he could get anything for Him ; who 
goes to market for his god as it is; on whose farm nothing 
grows free, whose fields bear no crops, whose meadows no 
flowers, whose trees no fruits, but dollars; who loves not the 
beauty of his fruits, whose fruits are not ripe for him till they 
are turned to dollars. Give me the poverty that enjoys true 
wealth. Farmers are respectable and interesting to me in pro- 
portion as they are poor, — poor farmers. A model farm ! where 
the house stands like a fungus in a muck-heap, chambers for 
men, horses, oxen, and swine, cleansed and uncleansed, all con- 
tiguous to one another. Stocked with men! A great gTease- 
spot, redolent of manures and buttermilk! Under a high 
state of cultivation, being manured with the hearts and brains 
of men ! As if you were to raise your potatoes in the church- 
yard! Such is a model farm. 

No, no; if the fairest features of the landscape are to be 
named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men 
alone. Let our lakes receive as true names at least as the 
Icarian Sea, where "still the shore" a "brave attempt resounds." 

Goose Pond, of small extent, is on my way to Flint's; Fair- 
Haven, an expansion of Concord River, said to contain some 
seventy acres, is a mile southwest; and White Pond, of about 
forty acres, is a mile and a half beyond Fair-Haven. This is 
my lake country. These, with Concord River, are my water 
privileges; and night and day, year in and year out, they giind 
such grist as T carry to them. 

Since the wood-cutters, and the railroad, and I myself have 



THE PONDS 203 

profaned Walden, perhaps the most attractive, if not the most 
beautiful, of all our lakes, the gem of the woods, is White 
Pond; — a poor name from its commonness, whether derived 
from the remarkable purity of its waters or the color of its 
sands. In these as in other respects, however, it is a lesser twin 
of Walden. They are so much alike that you would say they 
must be connected under ground. It has the same stony shore, 
and its waters are of the same hue. As at Walden, in sultry 
dog-day weather, looking down through the woods on some of 
its bays which are not so deep but that the reflection from the 
bottom tinges them, its waters are of a misty bluish green or 
glaucous color. Many years since I used to go there to collect 
the sand by cart-loads, to make sand-paper with, and I have 
continued to visit it ever since. One who frequents it proj^oses 
to call it Virid Lake. Perhaps it might be called Yellow-Pine 
Lake, from the following circumstance. About fifteen years ago 
you could see the top of a pitch-pine of the kind called yellow- 
pine hereabouts, though it is not a distinct species, projecting 
above the surface in deep water, many rods from the shore. It 
was even supposed by some that the pond had sunk, and this 
was one of the primitive forests that formerly stood there. I find 
that even so long ago as 1792, in a "Topographical Description 
of the Town of Concord," by one of its citizens, in the Collec- 
tions of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the author, after 
speaking of Walden and White Ponds, adds : "In the middle of 
the latter may be seen, when the water is very low, a tree which 
appears as if it grew in the place where it now stands, although 
the roots are fifty feet below the surface of the water; the top 
of this tree is broken off, and at that place measures fourteen 
inches in diameter." In the spring of '49 I talked with the man 
who lives nearest the pond in Sudbury, who told me that it was 
he who got out this tree ten or fifteen years before. As near as 
he could remember, it stood twelve or fifteen rods from the 
shore, where the water was thirty or forty feet deep. It was 



204 WALDEN 

in the winter, and he had been getting out ice in the forenoon, 
and had resolved that in the afternoon, with the aid of his neigh- 
bors, he would take out the old yellow pine. He sawed a chan- 
nel in the ice toward the shore, and hauled it over and along and 
out on to the ice with oxen ; but, before he had gone far in his 
work, he was surprised to find that it was wrong end upward, 
with the stumps of the branches pointing down, and the small 
end firmly fastened in the sandy bottom. It was about a foot in 
diameter at the big end, and he had expected to get a good saw- 
log, but it was so rotten as to be fit only for fuel, if for that. 
He had some of it in his shed then. There were marks of an 
axe and of woodpeckers on the butt. He thought that it might 
have been a dead tree on the shore, but was finally blown over 
into the pond, and after the top had become water-logged, while 
the butt-end was still dry and light, had drifted out and sunk 
wrong end up. His father, eighty years old, could not remem- 
ber when it was not there. Several pretty large logs may still 
be seen Ijdng on the bottom, where, owing to the undulation of 
the surface, they look like huge water snakes in motion. 

This pond has rarely been profaned by a boat, for there is 
little in it to tempt a fisherman. Instead of the white lily, 
which requires mud, or the common sweet flag, the blue flag 
{Iris versicolor) grows thinly in the pure water, rising from the 
stony bottom all around the shore, where it is visited by hum- 
ming birds in June, and the color both of its bluish blades and 
its flowers, and especially their reflections, are in singular har- 
mony with the glaucous water. 

White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface 
of the earth. Lakes of Light. If they were permanently con- 
gealed, and small enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, 
be carried off by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads 
of emperors ; but being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and 
our successors forever, we disregard them, and run after the 
diamond of Kohinoor. They are too pure to have a marke^/ 



THE PONDS 205 

value; they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than 
our lives, how much more transparent than our characters, are 
they ! We never learned meanness of them. How much fairer 
than the pool before the farmer's door, in which his ducks swim ! 
Hither the clean wild ducks come. Nature has no human inhab- 
itant who appreciates her. The birds with their plumage and 
their notes are in harmony with the flowers, but what youth or 
maiden conspires with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? 
She flourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside. 
Talk of heaven ! ye disgrace earth. 



BAKER FARM 

Sometimes I rambled to pine groves, standing like temples, 
or like fleets at sea, full-rigged, with wavy boughs, and rip- 
pling with light, so soft and green and shady that the Druids 
would have forsaken their oaks to worship in them; or to the 
cedar wood beyond Flint's Pond, where the trees, covered 
with hoary blue berries, spiring higher and higher, are fit to 
stand before Valhalla, and the creeping juniper covers the 
ground with wreaths full of fruit; or to swamps where the 
usnea lichen hangs in festoons from the white-spruce trees, and 
toadstools, round tables of the swamp gods, cover the ground, 
and more beautiful fungi adorn the stumps, like butterflies or 
shells, vegetable winkles; where the swamp-pink and dogwood 
gTow, the red alder-berry glows like eyes of imps, the waxwork 
grooves and crushes the hardest woods in its folds, and the wild- 
holly berries make the beholder forget his home with their 
beauty, and he is dazzled and tempted by nameless other wild 
forbidden fruits, too fair for mortal taste. Instead of calling 
on some scholar, I paid many a visit to particular trees, of kinds 
which are rare in this neighborhood, standing far away in the 
middle of some jDasture, or in the depths of a wood or swamp, or 
on a hill top : such as the black-birch, of which we have some 
handsome specimens two feet in diameter ; its cousin the yellow- 
birch, with its loose golden vest, perfumed like the first; the 
beech, which has so neat a bole and beautifully lichen-painted, 
perfect in all its details, of which, excepting scattered speci- 
mens, I know but one small grove of sizable trees left in the 

206 



BAKER FARM 207 

township, supposed by some to have been planted by the 
pigeons that were once baited with beech nuts near by; it is 
worth the while to see the silver grain sparkle when you split 
this wood ; the bass ; the hornbeam ; the celtis occidentalis, or 
false elm, of which we have but one well-grown ; some taller 
mast of a pine, a shingle tree, or a more perfect hemlock than 
usual, standing like a pagoda in the midst of the woods; and 
many others I could mention. These were the shrines I visited 
both summer and winter. 

Once it chanced that I stood in the very abutment of a rain- 
bow's arch, which filled the lower stratum of the atmosphere, 
tingeing the grass and leaves around, and dazzling me as if 
I looked through colored crystal. It was a lake of rainbow 
light, in which, for a short while, I lived like a dolphin. If it 
had lasted longer it might have tinged my employments and 
life. As I walked on the railroad causeway, I used to wonder 
at the halo of light around my shadow, and would fain fancy 
myself one of the elect. One who visited me declared that the 
shadows of some Irishmen before him had no halo about them, 
that it was only natives that were so distinguished. Benvenuto 
Cellini tells us in his memoirs, that, after a certain terrible 
dream or vision which he had during his confinement in the 
castle of St. Angelo, a resplendent light appeared over the 
shadow of his head at morning and evening, whether he was^in 
Italy or France, and it was particularly conspicuous when the 
grass was moist with dew. This was probably the same phe- 
nomenon to which I have referred, which is especially observed 
in the morning, but also at other times, and even by moonlight. 
Though a constant one, it is not commonly noticed, and, in the 
case of an excitable imagination like Cellini's, it would be basis 
enough for superstition. Besides, he tells us that he showed it 
to very few. But are they not indeed distinguished who are 
conscious that they are regarded at all? 

I set out one afternoon to go a-fishing to Fair-Haven, through 



208 WALDEN 

the woods, to eke out my scanty fare of vegetables. My way led 
throug'h Pleasant Meadow, an adjunct of the Baker Farm, that 
retreat of which a poet has since sung-, beginning, — 

Thy entry is a pleasant field, 

Which some mossy fruit trees yield 

Partly to a ruddy brook, 

By gliding musquash undertook, 

And mercurial trout, 

Darting about. 

I thought of living there before I went to Walden. I "hooked" 
the apples, leaped the brook, and scared the musquash and the 
trout. It was one of those afternoons which seem indefinitely 
long before one, in which many events may happen, a large 
portion of our natural life, though it was already half spent 
when I started. By the way there came up a shower, which 
compelled me to stand half an hour under a pine, piling boughs 
over my head, and wearing my handkerchief for a shed; and 
when at length I had made one cast over the pickerel-weed, 
standing up to my middle in water, I found myself suddenly 
in the shadow of a cloud, and the thunder began to rumble 
with such emphasis that I could do no more than listen to it. 
The gods must be proud, thought I, with such forked flashes 
to rout a poor unarmed fisherman. So I made haste for shelter 
to the nearest hut, which stood half a mile from any road, but 
so much the nearer to the pond, and had long been unin- 
habited : — 

And here a poet builded, 
In the completed years, 

For behold a trivial cabin 
That to destruction steers. 

So the Muse fables. But therein, as I found, dwelt now John 
Field, an Irishman, and his wife, and several children, from 
the broad-faced bov who assisted his father at his work, and 



BAKER FARM 209 

now came riinniiig by bis side from tbe bog to escape tbe rain, 
to tbe wrinkled, sibyl-like, cone-headed infant that sat upon its 
father's knee as in the palaces of nobles, and looked out from 
its home in the midst of wet and hunger inquisitively upon the 
stranger, with the privilege of infancy, not knowing but it was 
the last of a noble line, and the hope and cynosure of the world, 
instead of John Field's poor starveling brat. There we sat 
together under that jDart of the roof "which leaked the least, 
while it showered and thundered without. I had sat there many 
times of old before the ship was built that floated this family to 
America. An honest, hard-working, but shiftless man plainly 
was John Field; and his wife, she too was brave to cook so 
many successive dinners in the recesses of that lofty stove ; with 
round greasy face and bare breast, still thinking to improve her 
condition one day ; with the never absent mop in one hand, and 
yet no effects of it visible anywhere. The chickens, which had 
also taken shelter here from the rain, stalked about the room 
like members of the family, too humanized methought to roast 
well. They stood and looked in my eye or pecked at my shoe 
significantly. Meanwhile my host told me his story, how hard 
he worked "bogging" for a neighboring farmer, turning up a 
meadow with a spade or bog hoe at the rate of ten dollars an 
acre and the use of the land with manure for one year, and his 
little broad-faced son worked cheerfully at his father's side the 
while, not knowing how poor a bargain the latter had made. T 
tried to help him with my experience, telling him that he was 
one of my nearest neighbors, and that I too, who came a-fishing 
here, and looked like a loafer, was getting my living like him- 
self ; that I lived in a tight, light, and clean house, which hardly 
cost more than the annual rent of such a ruin as his commonly 
amounts to; and how, if he chose, he might in a month or two 
build himself a palace of his own ; that I did not use tea, nor 
coffee, nor butter, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so ^id not have 
to work to get them; again, as I did not work hard, I did not 



210 WALDEN 

have to eat hard, and it cost me but a trifle for my food ; but as 
he began with tea, and coffee, and butter, and milk, and beef, 
he had to work hard to pay for them, and when he had worked 
hard he had to eat hard again to repair the waste of his sys- I 
tem, — and so it was as broad as it was long, indeed it was ! 
broader than it was long, for he was discontented and wasted 
his life into the bargain ; and yet he had rated it as a gain, in 
coming to America, that here you could get tea, and coffee, and 
meat every day. But the only true America is that country 
where you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may 
enable you to do without these, and where the state does not 
endeavor to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other 
superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result from 
the use of such things. For I purposely talked to him as if he 
were a philosopher, or desired to be one. I should be glad if all 
the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state, if that were 
the consequence of men's beginning to redeem themselves. A 
man will not need to study history to find out what is best for 
his own culture. But alas! the culture of an Irishman is an 
enterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe. I told 
him, that as he worked so hard at bogging, he required thick 
boots and stout clothing, which yet were soon soiled and worn 
out, but I wore light shoes and thin clothing, which cost not half 
so much, though he might think that I was dressed like a gentle- 
man (which, however, was not the case), and in an hour or two, 
without labor, but as a recreation, I could, if I wished, catch as 
many fish as I should want for two days, or earn enough money 
to support me a week. If he and his family would live simply, 
they might all go a-huckleberrying in the summer for their 
amusement. John heaved a sigh at this, and his wife stared with 
arms akimbo, and both appeared to be wondering if they had 
capital enough to begin such a course with, or arithmetic enough 
to carry it through. It was sailing by dead reckoning to them, 
and they saw not clearly how to make their port so; therefore I 



BAKER FARM 211 

suppose they still take life bravely, after their fashion, face to 
face, giving it tooth and nail, not having" skill to split its mas- 
sive columns with any fine entering wedge, and rout it in detail ; 
— thinking to deal with it roughly, as one should handle a 
thistle. But they fight at an overwhelming disadvantage, — 
living, John Field, alas ! without arithmetic, and failing so. 

"Do you ever fish*?" I asked. "Oh, yes, I catch a mess now 
and then when I am lying by; good perch I catch." "What's 
your bait?" "I catch shiners with fish-worms, and bait the 
perch with them." "You'd better go now, John," said his wife, 
with glistening and hoj^eful face ; but John demurred. 

The shower was now over, and a rainbow above the eastern 
woods promised a fair evening ; so I took my departure. When 
I had got without I asked for a dish, hoping to get a sight of 
the well bottom, to complete my survey of the premises; but 
there, alas! are shallows and quicksands, and rope broken 
withal, and bucket irrecoverable. Meanwhile the right culinary 
vessel was selected, water was seemingly distilled, and after 
consultation and long delay passed out to the thirsty one, — 
not yet suffered to cool, not yet to settle. Such gruel sustains 
life here, I thought; so, shutting my eyes, and excluding the 
motes by a skilfully directed under-current, I drank to genuine 
hospitality the heartiest draught I could. I am not squeamish 
in such cases when manners are concerned. 

As I was leaving the Irishman's roof after the rain, bending 
my steps again to the pond, my hasto to catch pickerel, wading 
in retired meadows, in sloughs and bog-holes, in forlorn and 
savage places, appeared for an instant trivial to me who had 
been sent to school and college; but as I ran down the hill 
toward the reddening west, with the rainbow over my shoulder, 
and some faint tinkling sounds borne to my ear through the 
cleansed air, from I know not what quarter, my Good Genius 
seemed to say, — Go fish and hunt far and wide day by daj^, — 
farther and wider, — and rest thee by many brooks ?nr' hearth- 



212 WALDEN 

sides without misgiving'. Remember thy Creator in the days of 
thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek 
adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night 
overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields 
than these, no worthier games than may here be played. Grow 
wild according to thy nature, like these sedges and brakes, which 
will never become English hay. Let the thunder rumble; what 
if it threaten ruin to farmers' crops'? that is not its errand to 
thee. Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and 
sheds. Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. 
Enjoy the land, but own it not. Through want of enterprise 
and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and 
spending their lives like serfs. 
Baker Farm ! 

Landscape where the richest element 
Is a little sunshine innocent. ... 

No one runs to revel 

On thy rail-fenced lea. ... 

Debate with no man hast thou, 

With questions art never perplexed, 

As tame at the first sight as now, 

In thy plain russet gabardine dressed. ... 

Come ye who love, 

And ye who hate, 

Children of the Holy Dove, 

And Guy Faux of the state, 
And hang conspiracies 
From the tough rafters of the trees! 



Men come tamely home at night only from the next field or 
street, where their household echoes haunt, and their life })ines 
because it breathes its own breath over again; their shadows 
morning and evening reach farther than their daily steps. We 



BAKER FARM 213 

should come home from far, from adventures, and perils, and 
discoveries every day, with new experience and character. 

Before I had reached the pond some fresh impulse had 
brought out John Field, with altered mind, letting go "bogging" 
ere this sunset. But he, poor man, disturbed only a couple of 
fins while I was catching a fair string, and he said it was his 
luck ; but when he changed seats in the boat luck changed seats 
too. Poor John Field! — I trust he does not read this, unless 
he will improve by it, — thinking to live by some derivative old 
country mode in this primitive new country, — to catch perch 
wdth shiners. It is good bait sometimes, I allow\ With his 
horizon all his own, yet he a poor man, born to be poor, with his 
inherited Irish poverty or poor life, his Adam's grandmother 
and boggy ways, not to rise in this world, he nor his posterity. 
till their wading, webbed, bog-trotting feet* get talaria to their 
heels. 



XI 

HIGHER LAWS 

As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, 
trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of 
a woodehuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of 
savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour 
him raw ; not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness 
which he represented. Once or twice, however, while I lived at 
the pond, I found myself ranging the woods, like a half -starved 
hound, with a strange abandonment, seeking some kind of veni- 
son which I might devour, and no morsel could have been too 
savage for me. The wildest scenes had become unaccountably 
familiar. I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a 
higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and 
another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence 
them both. I love the wild not less than the good. The wild- 
ness and adventure that are in fishing still recommended it to 
me. I like sometimes to take rank hold on life and spend my 
day more as the animals do. Perhaps I have owed to this em- 
plovment and to hunting, when quite young, my closest acquaint- 
ance with Nature. They early introduce us to and detain us in 
scenery with which otherwise, at that age, we should have little 
acquaintance. Fishermen. Ininters, wood-choppers, and others, 
spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense 
a ]^art of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable 
mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than 
philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation. 
She is not afraid to exhibit herself to them. The traveler on 

214 



HIGHER LAWS 215 

the prairie is naturally a hunter, on the head waters of the 
Missouri and Columbia a trapper, and at the Falls of St. Mary a 
fisherman. He who is only a traveler learns things at second- 
hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most 
interested when science reports what those men already know 
practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, 
or account of human experience. 

They mistake who assert that tlie Yankee has few amusements, 
because he has not so many public holidays, and men and boys 
do not play so many games as they do in England, for here the 
more primitive but solitary amusements of hunting, fishing, and 
the like have not yet given place to the former. Almost every 
New England boy among my contemporaries shouldered a 
fowling-piece between the ages of ten and fourteen; and his 
hunting and fishing grounds were not limited like the preserves 
of an English nobleman, but were more boundless even than 
those of a savage. No wonder, then, that he did not oftener 
stay to play on the common. But already a change is taking 
place, owing, not to an increased humanity, but to an increased 
scarcity of game, for perhaps the hunter is the greatest friend 
of the animals hunted, not excepting the Humane Society. 

Moreover, when at the pond, I wished sometimes to add fish 
to my fare for variety. I have actually fished from the same 
kind of necessity that the first fishers did. Whatever humanity 
I might conjure up against it was all factitious, and concerned 
my philosophy more than my feelings. I speak of fishing only 
now, for I had long felt differently about fowling, and sold my 
gun before I went to the woods. Not that I am less humane 
than others, but I did not perceive that my feelings were much 
affected. I did not pity the fishes nor the worms. This was 
habit. As for fowling, during the last years that 1 carried a 
gun my excuse was that I was studying ornithology, and sought 
only new or rare birds. But I confess that I am now inclined 
to think that there is a finer way of studying ornithology than 



216 WALDEN 

this. It requires so much closer attention to the habits of the 
birds, that, if for that reason only, I have been willing to omit 
the gun. Yet notwithstanding the objection on the score of 
humanity, I am compelled to doubt if equally valuable sports 
are ever substituted for these; and when some of my friends 
have asked me anxiously about their boys, whether they should 
let them hunt, I have answered, yes, — remembering that it was 
one of the best parts of my education, — make them hunters, 
though sportsmen only at first, if possible, mighty hunters at 
last, so that they shall not find game large enough for them in 
this or any vegetable wilderness, — hunters as well as fishers of 
men. Thus far I am of the opinion of Chaucer's nun, who 

yave not of the text a pulled hen 
That salth that hunters ben not holy men. 

There is a period in the history of the individual, as of the race, 
when the hunters are the "best men," as the Algonquins called 
them. We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun ; 
he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neg- 
lected. This was my answer with respect to those youths who 
were bent on this pursuit, trusting that they would soon outgrow 
it. No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will 
wantonly murder any creature which ho'lds its life by the same 
tenure that he does. The hare in its extremity cries like a child. 
I warn you, mothers, that my sympathies do not always make 
the usual philanthropic distinctions. 

Such is oftenest the young man's introduction to the forest, 
and the most original part of himself. He goes thither at first 
as a hunter and fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better 
life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or 
naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. 
The mass of men are still and always young in this respect. In 
some countries a hunting parson is no uncommon sight. Such 



HIGHER LAWS ^ 217 

a one might make a good shepherd's dog, but is far from being 
the Good Shepherd. I have been surprised to consider that the 
only obvious employment, except wood-chopping, ice-cutting, 
or the like business, which ever to my knowledge detained at 
Walden Pond for a whole half day any of my fellow-citizens, 
whether fathers or children of the town, with just one exception, 
was fishing. Commonly they did not think that they were lucky, 
or well paid for their time, unless they got a long string of fish, 
though they had the opportunity of seeing the pond all the 
while. They might go there a thousand times before the sedi- 
ment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose 
pure ; but no doubt such a clarifying process would be going on 
all the while. The governor and his council faintly remember 
the pond, for they went a-fishing there when they were boys; 
but now they are too old and dignified to go a-fishing, and so 
they know it no more forever. • Yet even they expect to go to 
heaven at last. If the legislature regards it, it is chiefly to 
regulate the number of hooks to be used there ; but they know 
nothing about the hook of hooks with which to angle for the 
pond itself, empaling the legislature for a bait. Thus, even in 
civilized communities, the embryo man passes through the 
hunter stage of development. 

I have found repeatedly, of late years, that I cannot fish 
without falling a little in self-respect. I have tried it again and 
again. I have skill at it, and, like many of my fellows, a certain 
instinct for it, which revives from time to time ; but always when 
T have done I feel that it would have been better if I had not 
fished. I think that I do not mistake. It is a faint intimation, 
yet so are the first streaks of morning. There is unquestionably 
this instinct in me which belongs to the lower orders of creation ; 
yet with every year I am less a fisherman, though without more 
humanity or even wisdom ; at present I am no fisherman at all. 
But I see that if I were to live in a wilderness I should again be 
tempted to become a fisher and hunter in earnest. Besides, 



218 . WALDEN 

there is something essentially unclean about this diet, and all 
flesh, and I began to see where housework commences, and 
whence the endeavor, which costs so much, to wear a tidy and 
respectable appearance, each day, to keep the house sweet and 
free from all ill odors and sights. Having been my own butcher 
and scullion and cook, as well as the gentleman for whom the 
dishes were served up, I can speak from an unusually complete 
experience. The practical objection to animal food in my ease 
was its uneleanness; and, besides, when I had caught and 
cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have 
fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and 
cost more than it came to. A little bread or a few potatoes 
would have done as well, with less trouble and filth. Like many 
of my contemporaries, I had rarely for many years used animal 
food, or tea, or coffee, &c. ; not so much because of any ill effects 
w^hich I had traced to them, as because they were not agreeable 
to my imagination. The repugnance to animal food is not the 
effect of experience, but is an instinct. It appeared more beau- 
tiful to live low and fare hard in many respects ; and though I 
never did so, I went far enough to please my imagination. I 
believe that every man who has ever been earnest to preserve 
his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been par- 
ticularly inclined to abstain from animal food, and from much 
food of any kind. It is a significant fact, stated by entomolo- 
gists, I find it in Kirby and Spence, that "some insects in their 
perfect state, though furnished with organs of feeding, make no 
use of them"; and they lay it down as "a general rule, that 
almost all insects in this state eat much less than in that of 
larvae. The voracious caterpillar when transformed into a but- 
terfly," . . . "and the gluttonous maggot when become a fly," 
content themselves with a drop or two of honey or some other 
sweet liquid. The abdomen under the wings of the butterfly 
still represents the larva. This is the tidbit which tempts his 
insectivorous fate. The gross feeder is a man in the larva state; 



HIGHER LAWS 219 

and there are whole nations in that condition, nations without 
fancy or imagination, whose vast abdomens betray them. 

It is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a diet as 
will not offend the imagination ; but this, I think, is to be fed 
when we feed the body ; they should both sit down at the same 
table. Yet perhaps this may be done. The fruits eaten tem- 
perately need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor inter- 
rupt the worthiest i:)ursuits. But put an extra condiment into 
your dish, and it will poison you. It is not worth the while to 
live by rich cooker3\ Most men would feel shame if caught pre- 
])aring with their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of 
animal or vegetable food, as is every day prepared for them by 
others. Yet till this is otherwise we are not civilized, and, if 
gentlemen and ladies, are not true men and women. This cer- 
tainly suggests what change is to be made. It may be vain to 
ask why the imagination will not be reconciled to flesh and fat. 
I am satisfied that it is not. Is it not a reproach that man is a 
carnivorous animal? True, he can and does live, in a great 
measure, by preying on other animals; but this is a miserable 
way, — as any one who will go to snaring rabbits, or slaughter- 
ing lambs, may learn, — and he will be regarded as a benefactor 
of his race who shall teach man to confine himself to a more 
innocent and wholesome diet. Whatever my own practice may 
be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human 
race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as 
surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when 
they came in contact with the more civilized. 

If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his 
genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, 
or even insanity, it may lead him ; and yet that way, as he grows 
more resolute and faithful, his road lies. The faintest assured 
objection which one healthy man feels will at length prevail 
over the arguments and customs of mankind. No man ever 
followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were 



220 WALDEN 

bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the conse- 
quences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity 
to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you 
greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and 
sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, 
— that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and 
you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest 
gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. "We 
easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. 
They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astound- 
ing and most real are never communicated by man to man. The 
true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and inde- 
scribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star- 
dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched. 

Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish ; I could 
sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary. 
I am glad to have drunk water so long, for the same reason that 
I prefer the natural sky to an opium-eater's heaven. I would 
fain keep sober always ; and there are infinite degrees of drunk- 
enness. I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man ; 
wine is not so noble a liquor ; and think of dashing the hopes of 
a morning with a cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a 
dish of tea ! Ah, how low I fall when I am tempted by them ! 
Even music may be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes 
destroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and 
America. Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated 
by the air he breathes? I have found it to be the most serious 
objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled 
me to eat and drink coarsely also. But to tell the truth, I find 
myself at present somewhat less particular in these respects. 
I carry less religion to the table, ask no blessing ; not because I 
am wiser than I was, but, I am obliged to confess, because, how- 
ever much it is to be regretted, with years I have grown more 
coarse and indifferent. Perhaps these questions are entertained 



HIGHER LAWS 221 

only in youth, as most believe of poetry. My practice is "no- 
where," my opinion is here. Nevertheless I am far from regard- 
ing myself as one of those privileged ones to whom the Ved 
refers when it says that "he who has true faith in the Omnipres- 
ent Supreme Being may eat all that exists," that is, is not bound 
to inquire what is his food, or who prepares it; and even in 
their case it is to be observed, as a Hindoo commentator has 
remarked, that the Vedant limits this privilege to "the time of 
distress." 

Who has not sometimes derived an inexpressible satisfaction 
from his food in which appetite had no share? I have been 
thrilled to think that I owed a mental perception to the com- 
monly gross sense of taste, that I have been inspired through the 
palate, that some berries which I had eaten on a hillside had fed 
my genius. "The soul not being mistress of herself," says 
Thseng-tseu, "one looks, and one does not see; one listens, and 
one does not hear ; one eats, and one does not know the savor of 
food." He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never 
be a glutton ; he w^ho does not cannot be otherwise. A puritan 
may go to his brown-bread crust with as gross an appetite as 
ever an alderman to his turtle. Not that food which entereth 
into the moutb defileth a man, but the appetite with which it is 
eaten. It is neither the quality nor the quantity, but the devo- 
tion to sensual savors ; when that which is eaten is not a viand to 
sustain our animal, or inspire our spiritual life, but food for the 
worms that possess us. If the hunter has a taste for mud- 
turtles, muskrats, and other such savage tidbits, the fine lady 
indulges a taste for jelly made of a calf's foot, or for sardines 
from over the sea, and they are even. He goes to the mill-pond, 
she to her preserve-pot. The wonder is how they, how you and 
I, can live this slimy beastly life, eating and drinking. 

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an in- 
stant's truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only 
investment that never fails. In the music of 'the harp which 



222 WALDEN 

trembles round the world it is the insisting on this which thrills 
us. The harp is the traveling patterer for the Universe's Insur- 
ance Company, recommending its laws, and our little goodness 
is all the assessment that we pay. Though the youth at last 
.grows indifferent, the laws of the universe are not indifferent, 
but are forever on the side of the mpst sensitive. Listen to 
every zephyr for some reproof, for it is surely there, and he is 
unfortunate who does not hear it. We cannot touch a string or 
move a stop but the charming moral transfixes us. Many an 
irksome noise, go a long way off, is heard as music, a proud 
sweet satire on the meanness of our lives. 

We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in pro- 
portion as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, 
and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled ; like the worms which, 
even in life and health, occupy our bodies. Possibly we may 
withdraw from it, but never change its nature. I fear that it 
may enjoy a certain health of its own ; that we may be well, yet 
not pure. The other day I picked up the lower jaw of a hog, 
with white and sound teeth and tusks, which suggested that 
there was an animal health and vigor distinct from the spiritual. 
This creature succeeded by other means than temperance and 
purity. "That in which men differ from brute beasts," says 
Mencius, "is a thing very inconsiderable ; the common herd lose 
it very soon ; superior men preserve it carefully." Who knows 
what sort of life would result if we had attained to purity? If 
I knew so wise a man as could teach me purity I would go to 
seek him forthwith. "A command over our passions, and over 
the external senses of the body, and good acts, are declared by 
the Ved to be indispensable in the mind's approximation to 
God." Yet the spirit can for the time pervade and control 
every member and function of the body, and transmute what in 
form is the grossest sensuality into purity and devotion. The 
generative energy, which, when we are loose, dissipates and 
makes us unclean, when we are continent invigorates and in- 



HIGHER LAWS 223 

spires us. Chastity is th^ flowering of man ; and what are called 
Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits 
which succeed it. Man flows at once to God when the channel 
of purity is open. By turns our purity inspires and our impur- 
ity easts us down. He is blessed who is assured that the animal 
is dying out in him day by day, and the divine being established. 
Perhaps there is none but has cause for shame on account of the 
inferior and brutish nature to which he is allied. I fear that we 
are such gods or demigods only as fauns and satyrs, the divine 
allied to beasts, the creatures of appetite, and that, to some 
extent, our very life is our disgrace. — 

How happy 's he who hath due place assigned 
To his beasts and disaf ©rested his mind! 

****** 

Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and ev'ry beast, 

And is not ass himself to all the rest! 

Else man not only is the herd of swine. 

But he's those devils too which did incline 

Them to a headlong rage, and made them worse. 

All sensuality is one, though it takes many forms ; all j^ui'ity 
is one. It is the same whether a man eat, or drink, or cohabit, 
or sleep sensually. They are but one appetite, and we only need 
to see a person do any one of these things to know how great a 
sensualist he is. The impure can neither stand nor sit with 
purity. When the reptile is attacked at one mouth of his bur- 
row, he shows himself at another. If you would be chaste, you 
must be temperate. What is chastity ? How shall a man know 
if he is chaste? He shall not know it. We have heard of this 
virtue, but we know not what it is. We speak conformably to 
the rumor which we have heard. From exertion come wisdom 
and purity; from sloth ignorance and sensuality. In the stu- 
dent sensuality is a sluggish habit of mind. An unclean person 
ris universally a slothful one, one who sits by a stove, whom the 



224 WALDEN 

snn shines on prostrate, who reposes without being fatigued. 
If YOU would avoid uncleanliness, and all the sins, work ear- 
nestly, though it be at cleaning a stable. Nature is hard to be 
overcome, but she must be overcome. What avails it that you 
are Christian, if you are not purer than the heathen, if you deny 
yourself no more, if you are not more religious'? I know of 
many systems of religion esteemed heathenish whose precepts 
fill the reader with shame, and provoke him to new endeavors, 
though it be to the performance of rites merely. 

I hesitate to say these things, but it is not because of the sub- 
ject, — I care not how obscene my words are, — but because I 
cannot speak of them without betraying mj^ impurity. We dis- 
course freely without shame of one form of sensuality, and are 
silent about another. We are so degraded that we cannot speak 
simply of the necessary functions of human nature. In earlier 
ages, in some countries, every function was reverently spoken of 
and regulated by law. Nothing was too trivial for the Hindoo 
lawgiver, however offensive it may be to modern taste. He 
teaches how to eat, drink, cohabit, void excrement and urine, and 
the like, elevating what is mean, and does not falsely excuse 
himself by calling these things trifles. 

Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the 
god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off 
by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and paint- 
ers, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. 
Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any 
meanness or sensuality to imbrute them. 

John Farmer sat at his door one September evening, after a 
hard day's work, his mind still running on his labor more or less. 
Having bathed he sat down to recreate his intellectual man. It 
was a rather cool evening, and some of his neighbors were 
apprehending a frost. He had not attended to the train of his 
thoughts long when he heard some one playing on a flute, and 
that sound harmonized with his mood. Still he thought of his 



HIGHER LAWS 225 

work; but the burden of his thought was that though this kept 
running in his head, and he found himself planning and con- 
triving it against his will, yet it concerned him very little. It 
was no more than the scurf of his skin, which was constantly 
shuffled off. But the notes of the flute came home to his ears 
out of a different sphere from that he worked in, and suggested 
work for certain faculties which slumbered in him. They gently 
did away with the street, and the village, and the state in which 
he lived. A voice said to him, — Why do you stay here and live 
this mean moiling life, when a glorious existence is possible for 
you? Those same stars twinkle over other fields than these. — 
But how to come out of this condition and actually migrate 
thither? All that he could think of was to practice some new 
austerity, to let his mind descend into his body and redeem it, 
and treat himself with ever increasing respect. 



XII 

BRUTE NEIGHBORS 

Sometimes I had a companion in my fishing, who came 
tlirough the village to my house from the other side of the 
town, and the catching of the dinner was as much a social exer- 
cise as the eating of it. 

Hermit. I wonder what the world is doing now. I have not 
lieard so much as a locust over the sweet-fern these three hours. 
The pigeons are all asleep upon their roosts, — no flutter from 
them. Was that a farmer's noon horn which sounded from 
beyond the woods just now? The hands are coming in to boiled 
salt beef and cider and Indian bread. Why will men worry 
themselves so? He that does not eat need not work. I wonder 
how much they have reaped. Who would live there where a 
body can never think for the barking of Bose? And oh, the 
housekeeping ! to keep bright the devil's door-knobs, and scour 
his tubs this bright day ! Better not keep a house. Say, some 
hollow tree; and then for morning calls and dinner-parties! 
Only a wood-pecker tapping. Oh, they swarm; the sun is too 
Avarm there: they are born too far into life for me. I have 
water from the spring, and a loaf of brown bread on the shelf. — 
Hark ! I hear a rustling of the leaves. Is it some ill-fed village 
hound yielding to the instinct of the chase? or the lost pig 
which is said to be in these woods, w^hose tracks I saw after the 
rain? It comes on apace; my sumachs and sweet-briers trem- 
ble. — Eh, Mr. Poet, is it you? How do you like the world 
today? 

226 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 227 

Poet. See those clouds; how they hang! That's the greatest 
thing I have seen today. There's nothing like it in old paint- 
ings, nothing like it in foreign lands, — unless when we were oif 
the coast of Spain. That's a true Mediterranean sky. I thought, 
as I have my living to get, and have not eaten today, that I 
might go a-fishing. That's the true industry for poets. It is 
the only trade I have learned. Come, let's along. 

Hermit. I cannot resist. My brown bread will soon be gone. 
I will go with you gladly soon, but I am just concluding a seri- 
ous meditation. I think that I am near the end of it. Leave me 
alone, then, for a while. But that we may not be delayed, you 
shall be digging the bait meanwiiile. Angle-worms are rarely 
to be met with in these parts, where the soil was never fattened 
with manure; the race is nearly extinct. The sport of digging 
the bait is nearly equal to that of catching the fish, when one's 
appetite is not too keen ; and this you may have all to yourself 
today. I would advise you to set in the spade down yonder 
among the ground-nuts, where j^ou see the johnswort waving. 
I think that I may warrant you one worm to every three sods 
you turn up, if you look well in among the roots of the grass, 
as if you were weeding. Or, if you choose to go farther, it will 
not be unwise, for I have found the increase of fair bait to be 
very nearly as the squares of the distances. 

Hermit alone. Let me see, where was I? Methinks I Avas 
nearly in this frame of mind ; the world lay about at this angle. 
Shall I go to heaven or a-fishing? If I should soon bring this 
meditation to an end, would another so sweet occasion be likely 
to offer ? I was as near being resolved into the essence of things 
as ever I was in my life. I fear my thoughts will not come back 
to me. If it would do any good, I would whistle for them. 
When they make us an offer, is it wise to say, We will think of 
it? My thoughts have left no track, and I cannot find the path 
again. What was it that I was thinking of? It was a vers^ 
hazy day. I will just try these three sentences of Con-f ut-see ; 



228 WALDEN 

iliey may fetch that state about again. I know not whetlier it 
Avas the dumps or a budding ecstasy. Mem. There never is but 
one opportunity of a kind. 

Poet. How noF, Hermit, is it too soon? I have got just 
thirteen whole ones, besides several which are imperfect or 
undersized; but they will do for the smaller fry; they do not 
cover up the hook so much. Those village worms are quite too 
large; a shiner may make a meal off one without finding the 
skewer. 

Hermit. Well, then, let's be off. Shall we to the Concord? 
There's good sport there if the water be not too high. 

AVhy do precisely these objects which we behold make a 
world? Why has man just these species of animals for his 
neighbors; as if nothing but a mouse could have filled this 
crevice? I suspect that Pilpay & Co. have put animals to their 
best use, for they are all beasts of burden, in a sense, made to 
carry some portion of our thoughts. 

The mice w^hich haunted my house were not the common ones, 
which are said to have been introduced into the country, but a 
Avild native kind not found in the village. I sent one to a dis- 
tinguished naturalist, and it interested him much. When I was 
building, one of these had its nest underneath the house, and 
before I had laid the second floor, and swept out the shavings, 
Avould come out regularly at lunch time and pick up the crumbs 
at my feet. It probably had never seen a man before; and it 
soon became quite familiar, and would run over my shoes and 
up my clothes. It could readily ascend the sides of the room by 
short impulses, like a squirrel, which it resembled in its motions. 
At length, as I leaned with my elbow on the bench one day, it 
ran up my clothes, and along my sleeve, and round and round 
the paper which held my dinner, while I kept the latter close, 
and dodged and played at bo-peep with it; and when at last I 
held still a piece of cheese between my thumb and finger, it 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 229 

came and nibbled it, sitting' in my hand, and afterward cleaned 
its face and paws, like a fly, and walked away. 

A phoebe soon built in my shed, and a robin for protection in 
a pine which grew against the house. In June the partridge 
{Tetrao umhellus), which is so shy a bird, led her brood past 
my windows, from the w^oods to the rear to the front of my 
house, clucking and calling to them like a hen, and in all her 
behavior proving herself the hen of the woods. The young sud- 
denly disperse on your approach, at a signal from the mother, 
as if a whirlwind had swept them away, and they so exactly 
resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a traveler has 
placed his foot in the midst of a brood, and heard the whir of 
the old bird as she flew off, and her anxious calls and mewing, 
or seen her trail her wings to attract his attention, without sus- 
pecting their neighborhood. The parent will sometimes roll 
and spin round before you in such a dishabille, that you cannot, 
for a few moments, detect what kind of creature it is. The 
young squat still and flat, often running their heads under a 
leaf, and mind only their mother's directions given from a dis- 
tance, nor will your approach make them run again and betray 
themselves. You may even tread on them, or have your eyes on 
them for a minute, without discovering them. I have held them 
in my open hand at such a time, and still their only care, obedi- 
ent to their mother and their instinct, was to squat there without 
fear or trembling. So perfect is this instinct, that once, when 
I had laid them on the leaves again, and one accidentally fell on 
its side, it was found with the rest in exactly the same position 
ten minutes afterward. They are not callow like the young of 
most birds, but more perfectly developed and precocious even 
than chickens. The remarkably adult yet innocent expression 
of their open and serene eyes is very memorable. All intelli- 
gence seems reflected in them. They suggest not merely the 
purity of infancy, but a w^isdom clarified by experience. Such 
an eye was not born when the bird was, but is coeval with the 



230 WALDEN 

sky it reflects. The woods do not yield another such gem. The 
traveler does not often look into such a limpid well. The igno- 
rant or reckless sportsman often shoots the parent at such a 
time, and leaves these innocents to fall a prey to some prowling 
beast or bird, or gradually mingle with the decaying leaves 
which they so much resemble. It is said that when hatched by a 
lieii they will directly disperse on some alarm, and so are lost, 
for they never hear the mother's call which gathers them again. 
These were my hens and chickens. 

It is remarkable how many creatures live wild and free 
though secret in the woods, and still sustain themselves in the 
neighborhood of towns, suspected by hunters only. How re- 
tired the otter manages to live here ! He grows to be four feet 
long, as big as a small boy, perhaps without any human being- 
getting a glimpse of him. I formerly saw the raccoon in the 
woods behind where my house is built, and probably still heard 
their whinnering at night. Commonly I rested an hour or two 
in the shade at noon, after planting, and ate my lunch, and read 
a little by a spring which was the source of a swamp and of a 
brook, oozing from under Brister's Hill, half a mile from my 
field. The approach to this was through a succession of de- 
scending grassy hollows, full of young pitch-pines, into a larger 
wood about the swamp. There, in a very secluded and shaded 
s))ot, under a spreading white-pine, there was yet a clean firm 
sward to sit on. I had dug out the spring and made a well of 
clear gi'ay water, where I could dip up a pailful without roiling 
it, and thither I went for this purpose almost every day in mid- 
summer, when the pond was warmest. Thither too the wood- 
cock led her brood, to probe the mud for worms, flying but a 
foot above them down the bank, while thej^ ran in a troo}") 
beneath; but at last, spying me, she would leave her young 
and circle round and round me, nearer and nearer till within 
four or five feet, pretending broken wings and legs, to attract 
my attention, and get off her young, who would already have 



BRUTE NEIGHBORS 231 

taken up their march, with faint wiry peep, single file through 
the swamp, as she directed. Or I heard the peep of the young 
when I could not see the parent bird. There too the turtle- 
doves sat over the spring, or fluttered from bough to bough of 
the soft white-pines over my head; or the red squirrel, coursing 
down the nearest bough, was particularly familiar and inquisi- 
tive. You only need sit still long enough in some attractive 
spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves 
to you by turns. 

I was witness to events of a less jieaceful character. One day 
when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I 
observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, 
nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one 
another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled 
and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking far- 
ther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with 
such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a helium, a war 
between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the 
black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions 
of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood- 
yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and 
dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have 
ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle 
was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one 
hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side 
they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that 
I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. 
I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's em- 
braces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday 
prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out. The 
smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vice to his 
adversary's front, and through all the tumblings on that field 
never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near 
the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; 



232 WALDEN 

while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, 
as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several 
of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bull- 
dogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It 
was evident that their battle-cry was Conquer or die. In the 
meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hill side of 
this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had dis- 
patched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle ; prob- 
ably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs ; whose mother 
had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or per- 
chance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath 
apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. 
He saw this unequal combat from afar, — for the blacks were 
nearly twice the size of the red, — he drew near with rapid pace 
till he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants ; 
then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black war- 
rior, and commenced his operations near the root of his right 
fore-leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members ; and 
so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attrac- 
tion had been invented w^iich put all other locks and cements to 
shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that 
they had their respective musical bands stationed on some emi- 
nent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite 
the slow and cheer the dying combatants, I was myself excited 
somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think 
of it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not the 
fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of 
America, that will bear a moment's comparison with this, 
whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism 
and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was 
an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight ! Two killed on the 
patriots' side, and Luther Blanehard wounded ! Wliy, here 
every ant was a Buttrick, — "Fire! for God's sake fire!" — and 
thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was 



BKUTE NEIGHBOES 233 

not one hireling there. I have no doiibt that it was a principle 
they fought for, as much ?3 our ancestors, and not to avoid a 
three-penny tax on their tea ; and the results of this battle will 
be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as 
those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least. 

I took up the chip on which the three I have particularly 
described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed 
it under a tumbler on my window-sill, in order to see the issue. 
Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw 
that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near fore-leg 
of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, Jhis own 
breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to 
the jaws of the black warrior, whose breast-jilate was appa- 
rently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of 
the sufferer's eyes shone with ferocity such as war only could 
excite. They struggled half an hour longer under the tumbler, 
and when I looked again the black soldier had severed the heads 
of his foes from their bodies, and the still living heads were 
hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies at his saddle- 
bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever, and he was 
endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without feelers and 
with only the remnant of a leg, and I know not how many other 
wounds, to divest himself of them ; which at length, after half 
an hour more, he accomplished. I raised the glass, and he went 
off over the window-sill in that crippled state. Whether he 
finally survived that combat, and spent the remainder of his 
days in some Hotel des Invalides, I do not know; but I thought 
that his industry would not be worth much thereafter. I never 
learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the war; 
but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings 
excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity 
and carnage, of a human battle before my door. 

Kirby and Spence tell us that the battles of ants have long 
been celebrated and the date of them recorded, though they say 



234 WALDEN 

that Huber is the only modern author who appears to have 
witnessed them. "^ILneas Sylvius/' say they, "after giving a 
very circumstantial account of one contested with great obsti- 
nacy by a great and small species on the trunk of a pear tree," 
adds that " ^This action w^as fought in the pontificate of Eu- 
genius the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an 
eminent lawyer, who related the whole history of the battle 
with the greatest fidelity/ A similar engagement between great 
and small ants is recorded by Olaus Magnus, in which the small 
ones, being victorious, are said to have buried the bodies of 
their own soldiers, but left those of their giant enemies a prey 
to the birds. This event happened previous to the expulsion of 
the tyrant Christiern the Second from Sweden." The battle 
which I witnessed took place in the Presidency of Polk, five 
years before the passage of Webster's Fugitive-Slave Bill. 

Many a village Bose, fit only to course a mud-turtle in a 
victualling cellar, sported his heavy quarters in the woods, 
without the knowledge of his master, and ineffectually smelled 
at old fox burrows and wood-chucks' holes; led perchance by 
some slight cur which nimbly threaded the wood, and might still 
inspire a natural terror in its denizens; now far behind his 
guide, barking like a canine bull toward some small squirrel 
which had treed itself for scrutiny, then, cantering off, bending 
the bushes with his weight, imagining that he is on the track of 
some stray member of the jerbilla family. Once I was surprised 
to see a cat walking along the stony shore of the pond, for they 
rarely wander so far from home. The surprise was mutual. 
Nevertheless the most domestic cat, which has lain on a rug all 
her days, appears quite at home in the woods, and by her sly 
and stealthy behavior, proves herself more native there than 
the regular inhabitants. Once, when berrying, I met with a 
cat with young kittens in the woods, quite wild, and they all, 
like their mother, had their backs up and were fiercely spitting 
at me. A few years before I lived in the woods there was what 



BEUTE NEIGHBOKS 235 

was called a "winged cat" in one of the farm-houses in Lincoln 
nearest the pond, Mr. Gilian Baker's. When I called to see her 
in June, 1842, she was gone a-hunting in the woods, as was her 
wont (I am not sure whether it was a male or female, and so 
use the more common pronoun), but her mistress told me that 
she came into the neighborhood a little more than a year before, 
in April, and was finally taken into their house; that she was 
of a dark brownish gray color, with a white spot on her throat, 
and white feet, and had a large bushy tail like a fox; that in 
the winter the fur grew thick and flatted out along her sides, 
forming strips ten or twelve inches long by two and a half wide, 
and under her chin like a muff, the upper side loose, the under 
matted like felt, and in the spring these appendages dropped off. 
They gave me a pair of her "wings," which I keep still. There 
is no appearance of a membrane about them. Some thought it 
was part flying squirrel or some other wild animal, which is not 
impossible, for, according to naturalists, prolific hj'brids have 
been produced by the union of the marten and domestic cat. 
This would have been the right kind of cat for me to keep, if 
I had kept any ; for why should not a poet's cat be winged as 
well as his horse? 

In the fall the loon {Colymhus glacialis) came, as usual, to 
moult and bathe in the pond, making the woods ring with his 
wild laughter before I had risen. At rumor of his arrival all 
the Mill-dam sportsmen are on the alert, in gigs and on foot, 
two by two and three by three, with patent rifles and conical 
balls and spy-glasses. They come rustling through the woods 
like autumn leaves, at least ten men to one loon. Some station 
themselves on this side of the pond, some on that, for the poor 
bird cannot be omnipresent; if he dive here he must come up 
there. But now the kind October wind rises, rustling the leaves 
and rippling the surface of the water, so that no loon can be 
heard or seen, though his foes sweep the pond with spy-glasses, 
and make the woods resound with their discharges. The waves 



236 WALDEN 

generously rise and dash angrily, taking sides with all water- 
fowl, and our sportsmen must beat a retreat to town and shop 
and unfinished jobs. But they were too often successful. When 
I went to get a pail of water early in the morning I frequently 
saw this stately bird sailing out of my cove within a few rods. 
If I endeavored to overtake him in a boat, in order to see how 
he would maneuver, he would dive and be completely lost, so 
that I did not discover him again, sometimes, till the latter 
part of the day. But I was more than a match for him on the 
surface. He commonly went off in a rain. 

As I was paddling along the north shore one very calm 
October afternoon, for such days especially they settle on to 
the lakes, like the milkweed down, having looked in vain over 
the pond for a loon, suddenly one, sailing out from the shore 
toward the middle a few rods in front of me, set up his wild 
laugh and betrayed himself. I pursued with a paddle and he 
dived, but when he came up I was nearer than before. He 
dived again, but I miscalculated the direction he would take, 
and we were fifty rods apart when he came to the surface this 
time, for I had helped to widen the interval; and again he 
laughed long and loud, and with more reason than before. 
He maneuvered so cunningly that I could not get within half 
a dozen rods of him. Each time, when he came to the surface, 
turning his head this way and that, he coolly surveyed the 
water and the land, and apparently chose his course so that 
he might come up where there was the widest expanse of water 
and at the greatest distance from the boat. It was surprising 
how quickly he made up his mind and put his resolve into 
execution. He led me at once to the widest part of the pond, 
and could not be driven from it. While he was thinking one 
thing in his brain, I was endeavoring to divine his thought 
in mine. It was a pretty game, played on the smooth surface 
of the pond, a man against a loon. Suddenly your adversary's 
checker disappears beneath the board, and the problem is to 



BJIUTE NEIGHBORS 237 

place yours nearest to where his will appear again. Sometimes 
he would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, 
having- apparently passed directly under the boat. So long% 
winded was he and so unweariable, that when he had swum 
farthest he would immediately plunge again, nevertheless; 
and then no wit could divine where in the deep pond, beneath 
the smooth surface, he might be speeding his way like a fish, 
for he had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond 
in its deepest part. It is said that loons have been caught in 
the New York lakes eighty feet beneath the surface, with 
hooks set for trout, — though Walden is deeper than that. How 
surprised must the fishes be to see this ungainly visitor from 
another sphere speeding his way amid their schools! Yet he 
appeared to know his course as surely under water as on the 
surface, and swam much faster there. Once or twice I saw a 
ripple where he approached the surface, just put his head 
out to reconnoiter, and instantly dived again. I found that it 
was as well for me to rest on my oars and wait his reappearing 
as to endeavor to calculate where he would rise; for again 
and again, when I was straining my eyes over the surface one 
way, I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh 
behind me. But why, after displaying so much cunning, did 
he invariably betray himself the moment he came up by that 
loud laugh? Did not his white breast enough betray him? 
He was indeed a silly loon, I thought. I could commonly hear 
the plash of the water when he came up, and so also detected 
him. But after an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as 
willingly and swam yet farther than at first. It was surprising 
to see how serenely he sailed off with unruffled breast when he 
came to the surface, doing all the work with his webbed feet 
beneath. His usual note was this demoniac laughter, yet 
somewhat like that of a water-fowl; but occasionally, when he 
had balked me most successfully and come up a long way off, 
he uttered a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like 



238 WALDEN 

that of a wolf than any bird ; as when a beast puts his muzzle 
to the ground and deliberately howls. This was his looning, — 
perhaps the wildest sound that is ever heard here, making the 
woods ring far and wide. I concluded that he laughed in 
derision of my efforts, confident of his own resources. Though 
the sky was by this time overcast, the pond was so smooth that 
I could see where he broke the surface when I did not hear 
him. His white breast, the stillness of the air, and the smooth- 
ness of the water were all against him. At length, having 
come up fifty rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged howls, 
as if calling on the god of loons to aid him, and immediately 
there came a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and 
filled the whole air with misty rain, and I was impressed as if 
it were the prayer of the loon answered, and his god was angry 
with me; and so I left him disappearing far away on the 
tumultuous surface. 

For hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack 
and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sports- 
man; tricks which they will have less need to practice in 
Louisiana bayous. When compelled to rise they would some- 
times circle round and round and over the pond at a consider- 
able height, from which they could easily see to other ponds 
and the river, like black motes in the sky ; and when I thought 
they had gone off thither long since, they would settle down 
by a slanting flight of a quarter of a mile on to a distant part 
which was left free ; but what besides safety they got by sailing 
in the middle of Walden I do not know, unless they love its 
water for the same reason that I do. 



XIII 

HOUSE-WARMING 

In October I went a-graping to the river meadows, and 
loaded myself with clusters more precious for their beauty 
and fragrance than for food. There too I admired, though I 
did not gather, the cranberries, small waxen gems, pendants 
of the meadow grass, pearly and red, which the farmer plucks 
with an ugly rake, leaving the smooth meadow in a snarl, 
heedlessly measuring them by the bushel and the dollar only, 
and sells the spoils of the meads to Boston and New York; 
destined to be jammed, to satisfy the tastes of lovers of Nature 
there. So butchers rake the tongues of bison out of the prairie 
grass, regardless of the torn and drooping plant. The bar- 
berry's brilliant fruit was likewise food for my eyes merely; 
but I collected a small store of wild apples for coddling, which 
the proprietors and travelers had overlooked. When chestnuts 
were ripe I laid up half a bushel for winter. It was very 
exciting at that season to roam the then boundless chestnut 
woods of Lincoln, — they now sleep their long sleep under the 
railroad, — with a bag on my shoulder, and a stick to open 
burrs with in my hand, for I did not always wait for the 
frost, amid the rustling of leaves and the loud reproofs of the 
red squirrels and the jays, whose half-consumed nuts I some- 
times stole, for the burrs which they had selected were sure 
to contain sound ones. Occasionally I climbed and shook the 
trees. They grew also behind my house, and one large tree 
which almost overshadowed it was, when in flower, a bouquet 
which scented the whole neighborhood, but the squirrels and 

239 



240 WALDEN 

the jays got most of its fruit; the last coming in flocks early 
in the morning and picking the nuts out of the burrs before 
they fell. I relinquished these trees to them- and visited the 
more distant woods composed wholly of chestnut. These nuts, 
as far as they went, were a good substitute for bread. Many 
other substitutes might, perhaps, be found. Digging one day 
for fishworms I discovered the ground-nut (Apios tuherosa) 
on its string, the potato of the aborigines, a sort of fabulous 
fruit, which I had begun to doubt if I had ever dug and eaten 
in childhood, as I had told, and had not dreamed it. I had 
often since seen its crimpled red velvety blossom supported 
by the stems of other plants without knowing it to be the same. 
Cultivation has well-nigh exterminated it. It has a sweetish 
taste, much like that of a frostbitten potato, and I found it 
better boiled than roasted. This tuber seemed like a faint 
]>romise of Nature to rear her own children and feed them 
simply here at some future period. In these days of fatted 
cattle and waving grain-fields, this humble root, which was 
once the totem of an Indian tribe, is quite forgotten, or known 
only by its flowering vine; but let wild Nature reign here once 
more, and the tender and luxurious English grains will probably 
disappear before a myriad of foes, and without the care of 
man the crow may carry back even the last seed of corn to 
the great cornfield of the Indian's God in the southwest, whence 
he is said to have brought it ; but the now almost exterminated 
ground-nut will perhaps revive and flourish in spite of frosts 
and wildness, prove itself indigenous, and resume its ancient 
importance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe. Some 
Indian Ceres or Minerva must have been the inventor and 
bestower of it ; and when the reign of poetry commences here, 
its leaves and string of nuts may be represented on our works 
of art. 

Already, by the first of September, I had seen two or three 
small maples turned scarlet across the pond, beneath where 



HOUSE-WARMING 241 

the white stems of three aspens diverged, at the point of a 
promontory, next the water. Ah, many a tale their color told ! 
And gradually from week to week the character of each tree 
came out, and it admired itself reflected in the smooth mirror 
of the lake. Each morning the manager of this gallery sub- 
stituted some new picture, distinguished by more brilliant or 
harmonious coloring, for the old upon the walls. 

The wasps came by thousands to my lodge in October, as to 
winter quarters, and settled on my windows within and on 
the walls overhead, sometimes deterring visitors from entering. 
Each morning, when they were numbed with cold, I swept 
some of them out, but I did not trouble myself much to get rid 
of them ; I even felt complimented by their regarding my house 
as a desirable shelter. They never molested me seriously, 
though they bedded with me ; and they gradually disappeared, 
into what crevices I do not know, avoiding winter and unspeak- 
able cold. 

Like the wasps, before I finally went into winter quarters in 
November, I used to resort to the northeast side of Walden, 
w^hich the sun, reflected from the pitch-pine woods and the 
stony shore, made the fireside of the pond; it is so much 
pleasanter and wholesomer to be warmed by the sun while you 
can be, than by an artificial fire. I thus warmed myself by the 
still glowing embers which the summer, like a departed hunter, 
had left. 

When I came to build my chimney I studied masonry. My 
bricks, being second-hand ones, required to be cleaned with a 
trowel, so that I learned more than usual of the qualities of 
bricks and trowels. The mortar on them was fifty years old, 
and was said to be still growing harder; but this is one of 
those sayings which men love to repeat whether they are true 
or not. Such sayings themselves grow harder and adhere more 
firmly with age, and it would take many blows with a trowel 



242 WALDEN 

to clean an old wiseacre of them. Many of the villages of 
Mesopotamia are built of second-hand bricks of a ver}^ good 
quality, obtained from the ruins of Babylon, and the cement 
on them is older and probably harder still. However that 
may be, I was struck by the peculiar toughness of the steel 
Avhich bore so many violent blows without being worn out. 
As my bricks had been in a chimney before, though I did not 
read the name of Nebuchadnezzar on them, I picked out as 
many fireplace bricks as I could find, to save work and waste, 
and I filled the spaces between the bricks about the fireplace 
with stones from the pond shore, and also made my mortar 
wdth the white sand from the same place. I lingered most 
about the fireplace, as the most vital part of the house. Indeed, 
I worked so deliberately, that though I commenced at the ground 
in the morning, a course of bricks raised a few inches above 
the floor served for my pillow at night; yet I did not get a 
stiff neck for it that I remember ; my stiff neck is of older date. 
I took a poet to board for a fortnight about those times, which 
caused me to be put to it for room. He brought his own knife, 
though I had two, and we used to scour them by thrusting them 
into the earth. He shared with me the labors of cooking. I was 
pleased to see my work rising so square and solid by degrees, 
and reflected that, if it proceeded slowly, it was calculated to 
endure a long time. The chimney is to some extent an inde- 
pendent structure, standing on the ground and rising through 
the house to the heavens ; even after the house is burned it still 
stands sometimes, and its importance and independence are 
apparent. This was toward the end of summer. It was now 
November. 

The north wind had already begun to cool the pond, though 
it took many weeks of steady blowing to accomplish it, it is so 
deep. When I began to have a fire at evening, before I plastered 
my house, the chimney carried smoke particularly well, because 



HOUSE-WARMING 243 

of the numerous chinks between the boards. Yet I passed some 
cheerful evenings in that cool and airy apartment, surrounded 
by the rough brown boards full of knots, and rafters with the 
bark on high overhead. My house never pleased my eye so 
much after it was plastered, though I was obliged to confess 
that it was more comfortable. Should not every apartment 
in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity 
overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about 
the rafters? These forms are more agreeable to the fancy and 
imagination than fresco paintings or other the most expensive 
furniture. I now first began to inhabit my house, I may say, 
when I began to use it for w^armth as well as shelter. I had 
got a couple of old fire-dogs to keep the wood from the hearth, 
and it did me good to see the soot form on the back of the 
chimney which I had built, and I poked the fire with more 
right and more satisfaction than usual. My dwelling was 
small, and I could hardly entertain an echo in it ; but it seemed 
larger for being a single apartment and remote from neighbors. 
All the attractions of a house were concentrated in one room; 
it was kitchen, chamber, parlor, and keeping-room; and what- 
ever satisfaction parent or child, master or servant, derive 
from living in a house, I enjoyed it all. Cato says, the master 
of a family (paterfamilias) must have in his rustic villa "cellam 
oleariam, vinariam, dolia multa, uti lubeat caritatem expectare, 
et rei, et virtuti, et gloriae erit," that is, "an oil and wine cellar, 
many casks, so that it may be pleasant to expect hard times; 
it will be for his advantage, and virtue, and glory." I had in 
my cellar a firkin of potatoes, about two quarts of peas with 
the weevil in them, and on my shelf a little rice, a jug of 
molasses, and of rye and Indian meal a peck each. 

I sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house, 
standing in a golden age, of enduring materials, and without 
gingerbread-work, which shall still consist of only one room, 
a vast, rude, substantial, primitive hall, without ceiling or 



244 WALDEN 

plastering, with bare rafters and purlins supporting a sort of 
lower heaven over one's head, — useful to keep off rain and 
snow; where the king and queen posts stand out to receive 
your homage,' when you have done reverence to the prostrate 
Saturn of an older dynasty on stepping over the sill ; a caver- 
nous house, wherein you must reach up a torch upon a pole 
to see the roof; where some may live in the fireplace, come in 
the recess of a window, and some on settles, some at one end 
of the hall, some at another, and some aloft on rafters with the 
spiders, if they choose ; a house which you have got into when 
you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over; 
where the weary traveler may wash, and eat, and converse, and 
sleep, without further journey ; such a shelter as you would be 
glad to reach in a tempestuous night, containing all the essen- 
tials of a house, and nothing for house-keeping, where you 
can see all the treasures of the house at one view, and every- 
thing hangs upon its peg that a man should use ; at once kitchen, 
pantry, parlor, chamber, store-house, and garret; where you 
can see so necessary a thing as a barrel or a ladder, so con- 
venient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot boil, and pay 
your resjDects to the fire that cooks your dinner and the oven 
that bakes your bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils 
are the chief ornaments; where the washing is not put out, nor 
the fire, nor the mistress, and perhaps you are sometimes 
requested to move from off the trap-door, when the cook would 
descend into the cellar, and so learn whether the ground is 
solid or hollow beneath you without stamping. A' house whose 
inside is as open and manifest as a bird's nest, and you can- 
not go in at the front door and out at the back without seeing 
some of its inhabitants ; where to be a guest is to be jd resented 
with the freedom of the house, and not to be carefully excluded 
from seven-eighths of it, shut up in a particular cell, and told 
to make yourself at home there, — in solitary confinement. Now- 
adays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the 



HOUSE-WARMING 245 

mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and 
hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance. 
There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he had a 
design to poison you. I am aware that I have been on many 
a man's premises, and might have been legally ordered off, 
but I am not aware that I have been in many men's houses. 
I might visit in my old clothes a king and queen who lived 
simply in such a house as I have described, if I were 
going their w^ay; but backing out of a modern palace will 
be all that I shall desire to learn, if ever I am caught in 
one. 

It would seem as if the very language of our parlors would 
lose all its nerve and degenerate into parlaver wholly, ou.r lives 
pass at such remoteness from its symbols, and its metaphors 
and tropes are necessarily so far fetched, through slides and 
dumb-waiters, as it were; in other w^ords, the parlor is so far 
from the kitchen and workshop. The dinner even is only the 
parable of a dinner, commonly. As if only the savage dwelt 
near enough to Nature and Truth to borrow a trope from them. 
How can the scholar, who dwells away in the North West Ter- 
ritory or the Isle of Man, tell what is parliamentary in the 
kitchen ? 

However, only one or two of my guests were ever bold enough 
to stay and eat a hasty-pudding with me; but when they saw 
that crisis approaching they beat a hasty retreat rather, as it 
would shake the house to its foundations. Nevertheless, it 
stood through a great m'any hasty-puddings. 

I did not plaster till it was freezing weather. I brought 
over some whiter and cleaner sand for this purpose from the 
opposite shore of the pond in a boat, a sort of conveyance 
which would have tempted 'me to go much farther if necessary. 
My house had in the meanwhile been shingled down to the 
ground on every side. In lathing I was pleased to be able to 
send home each nail with a single blow of the hammer, and 



246 WALDEN 

it was my ambition to transfer the plaster from the board to 
the wall neatly and rajjidly. I remembered the story of a 
conceited fellow, who, in fine clothes, was wont to lounge about 
the village once, giving advice to workmen. Venturing one 
day to substitute deeds for words, he turned up his cuffs, seized 
a plasterer's board, and having loaded his trowel without mis- 
lia]), with a complacent look toward the lathing overhead, made 
a bold gesture thitherward ; and straightway, to his complete 
discomfiture, received the whole contents in his ruffled bosom. 
I admired anew the economy and convenience of plastering, 
which so effectually shuts out the cold and takes a handsome 
finish, and I learned the various casualties to which the plas- 
terer is liable. I was suri)rised to see how thirsty the bricks 
were, which drank up all the moisture in my plaster before I 
had smoothed it, and how many pailfuls of water it takes to 
christen a new hearth. I had the previous winter made a small 
quantity of lime by burning the shells of the Unio fluviatilis, 
which our river affords, for the sake of the experiment ; so that 
I knew where my materials came from. I might have got good 
limestone within a mile or two and burned it myself, if I had 
cared to do so. 

The pond had in the meanwhile skimmed over in the shadiest 
and shallowest coves, some days or even weeks before the 
general freezing. The first ice is especially interesting and 
perfect, being hard, dark, and transparent, and affords the 
best opportunity that ever offers for examining the bottom 
where it is shallow; for you can lie at your length on ice only 
an inch thick, like a skater insect on the surface of the water, 
and study the bottom at your leisure, only two or three inches 
distant, like a picture behind a glass, and the water is neces- 
sarily always smooth then. There are many furrows in the 
sand where some creature has traveled about and doubled on 
its tracks ; and, for wrecks, it is strewn with the cases of cadis 
worms made of minute grains of white quartz. Perhaps these 



HOUSE-WARMING 247 

have creased it, for you find some of their cases in the furrows, 
though they are deep and broad for them to make. But the 
ice itself is the object of most interest, though you must improve 
the earliest opportunity to study it. If you examine it closely 
the morning after it freezes, you find that the greater part of 
the bubbles, which at first appeared to be within it, are against 
the under surface, and that more are continually rising from 
the bottom; while the ice is as yet comparatively solid and 
dark, that is, you see the water through it. These bubbles are 
from an eightieth to an eighth of an inch in diameter, very 
clear and beautiful, and you see your face reflected in them 
through the ice. There may be thirty or forty of them to a 
square inch. There are also already within the ice narrow 
oblong perpendicular bubbles about half an inch long, sharp 
cones with the apex upward; or oftener, if the ice is quite 
fresh, minute spherical bubbles, one directly above another, 
like a string of beads. But these within the ice are not so 
numerous nor obvious as those beneath. I sometimes used to 
east on stones to try the strength of the ice, and those which 
broke through carried in air with them, which formed very 
large and conspicuous white bubbles beneath. One day when 
I came to the same place forty-eight hours afterward, I found 
that those large bubbles were still perfect, though an inch 
more of ice had formed, as I could see distinctly by the seam 
in the edge of a cake. But as the last two days had been very 
warm, like an Indian summer, the ice was not now transparent, 
showing the dark green color of the water, and the bottom, 
but opaque and whitish or gray, and though twice as thick 
was hardly stronger than before, for the air bubbles had greatly 
expanded under this heat and run together, and lost their regu- 
larity ; they were no longer one directly over another, but often 
like silvery coins poured from a bag, one overlapping another, 
or in thin flakes, as if occupying slight cleavages. The beauty 
of the ice was gone, and it was too late to study the bottom. 



248 * WALDEN 

Being curious to know what position my great bubbles occupied 
with regard to the new ice, I broke out a cake containing a 
middling-sized one, and turned it bottom upward. The new 
ice had formed around and under the bubble, so that it was 
included between the two ices. It was wholly in the lower ice, 
but close against the upper, and was flattish, or perhaps slightly 
lenticular, with a rounded edge, a quarter of an inch deep by 
four inches in diameter; and I was surprised to find that 
directly under the bubble the ice was melted with great regu- 
larity in the form of a saucer reversed, to the height of five- 
eighths of an inch in the middle, leaving a thin partition there 
between the water and the bubble, hardly an eighth of an inch 
thick; and in many places the small bubbles in this partition 
had burst out downward, and probably there was no ice at 
all under the largest bubbles, which were a foot in diameter. 
I inferred that the infinite number of minute bubbles which 
I had first seen against the under surface of the ice were now 
frozen in likewise, and that each, in its degree, had operated 
like a burning-glass on the ice beneath to melt and rot it. 
These are the little air guns which contribute to make the ice 
crack and whoop. 

At length the winter set in in good earnest, just as I had 
finished jDlastering, and the wdnd began to howl around the 
house as if it had not had permission to do so till then. Night 
after night the geese came lumbering in in the dark w^ith a 
clangor and a whistling of wings, even after the ground was 
covered with snow, some to alight in Walden, and some flying 
low over the woods toward Fair-Haven, bound for Mexico. 
Several times, when returning from the village at ten or eleven 
o'clock at night, I heard the tread of a flock of geese, or else 
ducks, on the dry leaves in the woods by a pond-hole behind 
my dwelling, where they had come up to feed, and the faint 
honk or quack of their leader as they hurried off. In 1845 



HOUSE-WARMING 249 

Walden froze entirely over for the first time on the night of 
the 22d of December, Flint's and other shallower ponds and 
the river having been frozen ten days or more ; in '46, the 16th ; 
in '49, about the 31st ; and in '50, about the 27th of December ; 
in '52, the 5th of January ; in '53, the 31st of December. The 
snow had already covered the ground since the 25th of Novem- 
ber, and surrounded me suddenly with the scenery of winter. 
I Avithdrew yet farther into my shell, and endeavored to keep 
a bright fire both within my house and within my breast. My 
employment out of doors now was to collect the dead wood 
in the forest, bringing it in my hands or on my shoulders, or 
sometimes trailing a dead pine tree under each arm to my 
shed. An old forest fence which had seen its best days was a 
great haul for me. I sacrificed it to Vulcan, for it was past 
serving the god Terminus. How much more interesting an 
event is that man's supper who has just been forth in the snow 
to hunt, nay, you may say, steal, the fuel to cook it with! 
His bread and meat are sweet. There are enough fagots and 
waste wood of all kinds in the forests of most of our towns 
to support many fires, but which at present warm none, and, 
some think, hinder the growth of the young wood. There was 
also the drift-wood of the pond. In the course of the summer 
I had discovered a raft of pitch-pine logs with the bark on, 
pinned together by the Irish when the railroad was built. This 
I hauled up j)artly on the shore. After soaking two years 
and then lying high six months it was perfectly sound, though 
waterlogged past .drying. I amused myself one winter day 
vvith sliding this piecemeal across the pond, nearly half a mile, 
skating behind with one end of a log fifteen feet long on my 
shoulder, and the other on the ice ; or I tied several logs together 
with a birch withe, and then, with a longer birch or alder 
which had a hook at the end, dragged them across. Though 
completely waterlogged and almost as heavy as lead, they not 
only burned long, but made a very hot fire; nay, I thought 



250 WALDEN 

that they burned better for the soaking, as if the pitch, being 
confined by the water, burned longer as in a lamp. 

Gilpin, in his account of the forest borderers of England, 
says that "the encroachments of trespassers, and the houses 
and fences thus raised on the borders of the forest," were 
"considered as great nuisances by the old forest law, and were 
severely punished under the name of purprestures, as tending 
ad terrorem fcrarum — ad nocumentum forestce, etc.,'' to the 
frightening of the game and the detriment of the forest. But 
I was interested in the preservation of the venison and the 
vert more tlian the hunters or wood-choppers, and as much as 
though I had been the Lord Warden himself; and if any part 
was burned, though I burned it myself by accident, I grieved 
with a grief that lasted longer and was more inconsolable than 
that of the proprietors; nay, I grieved when it was cut down 
by the ])roprietors themselves. I would that our farmers when 
they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old 
Romans did when they camo to thin, or let in the light to, a 
consecrated grove {lucum conlucare), that is, would believe 
that it is sacred to some god. The Roman made an expiatory 
offering, and prayed. Whatever god or goddess thou art to 
whom this grove is sacred, be propitious to me, my family, 
and children, etc. 

It is remarkable what a value is still put upon wood even 
in this age and in this new country, a value more j^ermanent 
and universal than that of gold. After all our discoveries and 
inventions no man will go by a jiile of wood. It is as precious ' 
to us as it was to our Saxon and Norman ancestors. If they 
made their bows of it, we make our gun-stocks of it. Miehaux, 
more than thirty years ago, says that the j^rice of wood for 
fuel in New York and Philadelphia "nearly equals, and some- 
times exceeds, that of the best wood in Paris, though this 
immense capital annually requires more than three hundred 
thousand cords, and is surrounded to the distance of three 



HOUSE-WARMING • 251 

hundred miles by cultivated j^lains." In this town the price 
of wood rises almost steadily, and the only question is, how 
much higher it is to be this year than it was the last. Mechanics 
and tradesmen who come in person to the forest on no other 
errand, are sure to attend the wood auction, and even pay a 
liigh price for the privilege of gleaning after the wood-chopper. 
It is now many years that men have resorted to the forest for 
fuel and the materials of the arts; the New Englander and 
the New Hollander, the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer and 
Robinhood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill, in most parts of 
the world the prince and the peasant, the scholar and the 
savage, equally require still a few sticks from the forest to 
warm them and cook their food. Neither could I do without 
them. 

Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection. 
I loved to have mine before my window, and the more chips 
the better to remind me of my pleasing work. I had an old 
axe which nobody claimed, with which by spells in winter days, 
on the sunny side of the house, I played about the stumps 
which I had got out of my beanfield. As my driver prophesied 
when I was plowing, they warmed me twice, once while I was 
splitting them, and again when they were on the fire, so that 
no fuel could give out more heat. As for the axe, I was advised 
to get the village blacksmith to "jump" it; but I jumped him, 
and, putting a hickory helve from the woods into it, made 
it do. If it was dull, it was at least hung true. 

A few pieces of fat pine were a great treasure. It is inter- 
esting to remember how much of this food for fire is still 
concealed in the bowels of the earth. In previous years I 
had often gone "prospecting" over some bare hill side, where 
a i)iteh-pine wood had formerly stood, and got out the fat 
pine roots. They are almost indestructible. Stumps thirty 
or forty years old, at least, will still be sound at the core, though 
the sapwood has all become vegetable mold, as appears by 



252 WALDEN 

the scales of the thick bark forming' a ring level with the earth 
four or five inches distant from the heart. With axe and shovel 
you explore this mine, and follow the marrowy store, yellow 
as beef tallow, or as if you had struck on a vein of gold, deep 
into the earth. But commonly I kindled my fire with the dry 
leaves of the forest, which I had stored up in my shed before 
the snow came. Green hickory finely sjDlit makes the wood- 
chopper's kindlings, when he has a camp in the woods. Once 
in a while I got a little of this. When the villagers were 
lighting their fires beyond the horizon, I too gave notice to 
the various wild inhabitants of Walden vale, by a smoky 
streamer from my chimney, that I was awake. — 

Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird, 
Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight, 
' Lark without song, and messenger of dawn, 
Circling above the hamlets as thy nest; 
Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form 
Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts; 
By night star-veiling, and by day 
Darkening the light and blotting out the sun ; 
Go thou my incense upward from this hearth, 
And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame. 

Hard gTeen wood just cut, though I used but little of that, 
answered my purpose better than any other. I sometimes left 
a good fire when I went to take a walk in a winter afternoon; 
and when I returned, three or four hours afterward, it would 
be still alive and glowing. My house was not empty though 
I was gone. It was as if I had left a cheerful housekeeper 
behind. It was I and Fire that lived there; and commonly 
my housekeeper proved trustworthy. . One day, however, as I 
was splitting wood, I thought that I would just look in at 
the window and see if the house was not on fire; it was the 
only time I remember to have been particularly anxious on 
this score; so I looked and saw that a spark had caught my 



HOUSE-WARMING 253 

bed, and I went in and extinguished it when it had burned a 
place as big as my hand. But my house occupied so sunny 
and sheltered a position, and its roof was so low, that I could 
afford to let the fire go out in the middle of almost any winter 
day. 

The moles nested in my cellar, nibbling every third potato, 
and making a snug bed even there of some hair left after 
plastering and of brown paper ; for even the wildest animals 
love comfort and warmth as well as man, and they survive 
the winter only because they are so careful to secure them. 
Some of my friends spoke as if I was coming to the woods 
on i^urpose to freeze myself. The animal merely makes a bed, 
w^hich he warms with his body in a sheltered place; but man, 
having discovered fire, boxes up some air in a spacious apart- 
ment, and warms that, instead of robbing himself, makes that 
his bed, in which he can move about divested of more cumbrous 
clothing, maintain a kind of summer in the midst of winter, 
and by means of windows even admit the light, and with a 
lamp lengthen out the day. Thus he goes a step or two beyond 
instinct, and saves a little time for the fine arts. Though, 
when I had been exposed to the rudest blasts a long time, my 
whole body began to gi'ow torpid, when I reached the genial 
atmosphere of my house I soon recovered my faculties and 
prolonged my life. But the most luxuriously housed has little 
to boast of in this respect, nor need Ave trouble ourselves to 
speculate how the human race may be at last destroyed. It 
would be easy to cut their threads any time with a little sharper 
blast from the north. We go on dating from Cold Fridays 
and Great Snows; but a little colder Friday, or greater snow, 
would put a iDcriod to man's existence on the globe. 

The next winter I used a small cooking-stove for economy, 
since I did not own the forest; but it did not keep fire so well 
as the open fire place. Cooking was then, for the most part, 
no longer a poetic, but merely a chemic, process. It will soon 



254 wAlden 

be forgotten, in these days of stoves, that we used to roast 
potatoes in the ashes, after the Indian fashion. The stove not 
only took up room and scented the house, but it concealed the 
fire, and I felt as if I had lost a companion. You can always 
see a face in the fire. The laborer, looking into it at evening, 
purifies his thoughts of the dross and earthiness which they 
have accumulated during the day. But I could no longer sit 
and look into the fire, and the pertinent words of a poet 
^ecurred to me with new force. — ■ 

Never, bright flame, may be denied to me 
Thy dear, life imaging, close sympathy. 
What but my hopes shot upward e'er so bright? 
"What but my fortunes sunk so low in night? 

Why art thou banished from our hearth and hall, 
Thou who art welcomed and beloved by all? 
Was thy existence then too fanciful 
For our life 's common light, who are so dull ? 

Did thy bright gleam mysterious converse hold 
With our congenial souls? secrets too bold? 
Well, we are safe and strong, for now we sit 
Beside a hearth where no dim shadows flit. 
Where nothing cheers nor saddens, but a fire 
Warms feet and hands — nor does to more aspire ; 
By whose compact utilitarian heap 
The present may sit down and go to sleep. 
Nor fear the ghosts who from the dim past walked, 
And with us by the unequal light of the old wood fire 
talked. 



XIV 

FORMER INHABITANTS AND WINTER VISITORS 

I weathered some merry snow-storms, and spent some cheer- 
ful winter evenings by my fireside, wkile the snow whirled 
wildly without, and even the hooting of the owl was hushed. 
For many weeks I met no one in my walks but those who came 
occasionally to cut wood and sled it to the village. The elements, 
however, abetted me in making a path through the deepest 
snow in the woods, for when I had once gone through the 
wind blew the oak leaves into my tracks, where they lodged, 
and by absorbing the rays of the sun melted the snow, and so 
not only made a dry bed for my feet, but in the night their 
dark line was my guide. For humaji society I was obliged 
to conjure up the former occupants of these woods. Within 
the memory of many of my townsmen the road near which 
my house stands resounded with the laugh and gossip of 
inhabitants, and the woods which border it were notched and 
dotted here and there with their little gardens and dwellings, 
though it was then much more shut in by the forest than now. 
In some places, within my own remembrance, the pines would 
scrape both sides of a chaise at once, and women and children 
who were compelled to go this way to Lincoln alone and on 
foot did it with fear, and often ran a good part of the distance. 
Though mainly but a humble route to neighboring villages, or 
for the Avoodman^s team, it once amused the traveler more 
than now by its variety, and lingered longer in his memory. 
Where now firm open fields stretch from the village to the 
woods, it then ran through a maple swamp on a foundation of 
logs, the remnants of which, doubtless, still underlie the present 

255 



25G WALDEX 

dusty highway, from the Stratten, now the Alms House, Farm, 
to Brister's Hill. 

East of my beanfield, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham, 
slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman of Concord 
village; who built his slave a house, and gave him permission 
to live in Walden Woods; — Cato, not Uticensis, but Concordi- 
ensis. Some say that he was a Guinea Negro. There are a 
few who remember his little patch among the walnuts, which 
he let grow up till he should be old and need them; but a 
younger and whiter speculator got them at last. He, too, 
however, occupies an equally narrow house at present. Cato's 
half-obliterated cellar hole still remains, though known to 
few, being concealed from the traveler by a fringe of pines. 
It is now filled with the smooth sumach {Rhus glabra), and 
one of the earliest species of goldenrod {Solidago stricta) 
grows there luxuriantly. 

Here, by the very covner of my field, still nearer to town, 
Zilpha, a colored woman, had her little house, where she spun 
linen for the townsfolk, making the Walden Woods ring with 
her shrill singing, for she had a loud and notable voice. At 
length, in the war of 1812, her dwelling was set on fire by 
English soldiers, prisoners on j^arole, when she was away, and 
her cat and dog and hens were all burned up together. She 
led a hard life, and somewhat inhumane. One old frequenter 
of these woods remembers that as he passed her house one noon 
he heard her muttering to herself over her gurgling joot, — "Ye 
are all bones, bones!" I have seen bricks amid the oak copse 
there. 

Down the road, on the right hand, on Brister's Hill, lived 
Brister Freeman, "a handy Negro," slave of Squire Cummings 
once, — there where grow still the apple trees which Brister 
planted and tended; large old trees now, but their fruit still 
wild and ciderish to my taste. Not long since I read his 
epitaph in the old Lincoln burying-ground, a little on one 



FORMER INHABITANTS AND WINTER VISITORS 257 

side, near the unmarked graves of some British grenadiers who 
fell in the retreat from Concord, — where he is styled "Sippio 
Brister," — Scipio Africanus he had some title to be called, — 
"a man of color," as if he were discolored. It also told me, 
with staring emphasis, when he died ; which was but an indirect 
way of informing me that he ever lived. With him dwelt 
Fenda, his hospitable wife, who told fortunes, yet pleasantly, — 
large, round, and black, blacker than any of the children of 
of the night, such a dusky orb as never rose on Concord before 
or since. 

Farther down the hill, on the left, on the old road in the 
woods, are marks of some homestead of the Stratton family; 
whose orchard once covered all the slope of Brister's Hill, but 
was long since killed out by pitch-pines, excepting a few stumps, 
whose old roots furnish still the wild stocks of many a thrifty 
village tree. 

Nearer yet to town, you come to Breed's location, on the 
other side of the way, just on the edge of the wood; ground 
famous for the pranks of a demon not distinctly, named in 
old mythology, who has acted a prominent and astounding part 
in our New England life, and deserves, as much as any mytho- 
logical character, to have his biography written one day; who 
first comes in the guise of a friend or hired man, and then robs 
and murders the whole family, — New England Rum. But 
history must not yet tell the tragedies enacted here; let time 
intervene in some measure to assuage and lend an azure tinjt 
to them. Here the most indistinct and dubious tradition says 
that once a tavern stood; the well the same, which tempered 
the traveler's beverage and refreshed his steed. Here then 
men saluted one another, and heard and told the news, and 
went their ways again. 

Breed's hut was standing only a dozen years ago, though it 
had long been unoccupied. It was about the size of mine. 
It was set on fire by mischievous boys, one Election night, if 



258 WALDEN 

I do not mistake. I lived on the edge of the village then, and 
iiad just lost myself over Davenant's Gondibert, that winter 
that I labored with a lethargy, — which, by the way, I never 
knevi^ whether to regard as a family complaint, having an 
nncle who goes to sleep shaving himself, and is obliged to 
sprout potatoes in a cellar Sundays, in order to keep awake 
and keep the Sabbath, or as the consequence of my attempt 
to read Chalmers' collection of English poetry without skip- 
l^ing. It fairly overcame my Nervii. I had just sunk my 
head on this when the bells rang fire, and in hot haste the 
engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of men and 
boys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped the brook. 
We thought it was far south over the woods, — we who had 
run to fires before, — barn, shoj), or dwelling-house, or all 
together. "It's Baker's barn," cried one. "It is the Codman 
Place," affirmed another. And then fresh sparks went up 
above the wood, as if the roof fell in, and we all shouted 
"Concord to the rescue!" Wagons shot past with furious 
speed and crushing loads, bearing, perchance, among the rest, 
the agent of the Insurance Company, who was bound to go 
however far ; and ever and anon the engine bell tinkled behind, 
more slow and sure, and rearmost of all, as it was afterward 
whispered, came they who set the fire and gave the alarm. Thus 
we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidence of our 
senses, until at a turn in the road we heard the crackling and 
actually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall, and realized, 
alas! that we were there. The very nearness of the fire but 
cooled our ardor. At first we thought to throw a frog-pond 
on to it; but concluded to let it burn, it was so far gone and 
so worthless. So we stood round our engine, jostled one 
another, expressed our sentiments through speaking trumpets, 
or in lower tone referred to the great conflagrations which 
the world had witnessed, including Bascom's shop, and, between 
ourselves, we thought that, were we there in season with our 



FORMER INHABITANTS AND WINTER VISITORS 259 

"tub" and a full frog-pond by, we could turn that threatened 
last and universal one into another flood. We finally retreated 
without doing any mischief, — i-eturned to sleep and Gondibert. 
But as for Gondibert, I would except that passage in the preface 
about wit being the soul's powder, — "but most of mankind are 
strangers to wit, as Indians are to powder." i 

It chanced that I walked that way across the fields the 
following night, about the same hour, and hearing a low 
moaning at this spot, I drew near in the dark, and discovered 
the only survivor of the family that I know, the heir of both 
its virtues and its Adces, who alone Avas interested in this 
burning, lying on his stomach and looking over the cellar wall 
at the still smoldering cinders beneath, muttering to himself, 
as is his wont. He had been working far off in the river 
meadow all day, and had improved the first moments that he 
could call his own to visit the home of his fathers and his 
youth. He gazed into the cellar from all sides and points of 
view by turns, alw^ays lying down to it, as if there was some 
treasure, which he remembered, concealed between the stones, 
where there was absolutely nothing but a heap of bricks and 
ashes. The house being gone, he looked at what there was left. 
He was soothed by the sympathy which my mere presence 
implied, and showed me, as well as the darkness permitted, 
where the well was covered up; which, thank Heaven, could 
never be burned; and he groped long about the wall to find 
the well-sw^eep which his father had cut and mounted, feeling 
for the iron hook or staple by which a burden had been fastened 
to the heavy end, — all that he could now cling to, — to convince 
me that it was no common "rider." I felt it, and still remark 
it almost daily in my walks, for by it hangs the history of a 
family. 

Once more, on the left, where are seen the well and lilac 
bushes by the wall, in the now open field, lived Nutting and 
Le Grosse. But to return toward Lincoln. 



260 WALDEN 

Farther in the woods than any of these, where the road 
approaches nearest to the pond, Wyman the potter squatted, 
and furnished his townsmen with earthen ware, and left 
descendants to succeed him. Neither were they rich in worldly 
goods, holding the land by sufferance while they lived; and 
there often the sheriff came in vain to collect the taxes, and 
'^attached a chip," for form's sake, as I have read in his 
accounts, there being nothing else that he could lay his hands 
on. One day in midsummer, when I w^as hoeing, a man who 
was carrying a load of pottery to market stopped his horse 
against my field and inquired concerning Wyman the younger. 
He had long ago bought a potter's wheel of him, and wished 
to know what had become of him. I had read of the potter's 
clay and wheel in Scripture, but it had never occurred to me 
that the pots we use were not such as had come down unbroken 
from those days, or grown on trees like gourds somewhere, 
and I was pleased to hear that so fictile an art was ever prac- 
ticed in my neighborhood. 

The last inhabitant of these woods before me was an Irish- 
man, Hugh Quoil (if I have spelt his name with coil enough), 
who occupied Wyman's tenement, — Col. Quoil, he was called. 
Rumor said that he had been a soldier at Waterloo. If he had 
lived I should have made him fight his battles over again. 
His trade here was that of a ditcher. Napoleon went to 
St. Helena; Quoil came to Walden Woods. All I know of 
him is tragic. He was a man of manners, like one who had 
seen the world, and was capable of more civil speech than you 
could well attend to. He Avore a great coat in midsummer, 
being affected with the trembling delirium, and his face was 
the color of carmine. He died in the road at the foot of 
Brister's Hill shortly after I came to the woods, so that I have 
not remembered him as a neighbor. Before his house was 
pulled down, when his comrades avoided it as "an unlucky 
castle," I visited it. There lay his old clothes curled up by 



FORMER INHABITANTS AND WINTER VISITORS 261 

use, as if they were himself, ui^on his raised plank bed. His 
pipe lay broken on the hearth, instead of a bowl broken at 
the fountain. The last could never have been the symbol of 
his death, for he confessed to me that, though he had heard of 
Brister's Spring, he had never seen it ; and soiled cards, kings 
of diamonds, spades, and hearts, were scattered over the floor. 
One black chicken which the administrator could not catch, 
black as night and as silent, not even croaking, awaiting Rey- 
nard, still went to roost in the next apartment. In the rear 
there was the dim outline of a garden, which had been planted 
but had never received its first hoeing, owing to those terrible 
shaking fits, though it was now harvest time. It was overrun 
with Roman wormwood and beggar-ticks, which last stuck to 
my clothes for all fruit. The skin of a woodchuck was freshly 
stretched upon the back of the house, a trophy of his last 
Waterloo; but no warm cap or mittens would he want more. 

Now only a dent in the earth marks the site of these dwellings, 
with buried cellar stones, and strawberries, raspberries, thimble- 
berries, hazel bushes, and sumachs growing in the sunny sward 
there; some pitch-pine or gnarled oak occupies what was the 
chimney nook, and a sweet-scented black-birch, perhaps, wave^ 
where the door-stone was. Sometimes the well dent is visible^ 
where once a spring oozed; now dry and tearless grass; or it 
was covered deep, — not to be discovered till some late day, — 
with a flat stone under the sod, when the last of the race 
departed. AVhat a sorrowful act must that be, — the covering 
up of wells ! coincident with the opening of wells of tears. 
These cellar dents, like deserted fox burrows, old holes, are all 
that is left where once were the stir and bustle of human life, 
and "fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," in some form 
and dialect or other were by turns discussed. But all I can 
learn of their conclusions amounts to just this, that "Cato and 
Brister pulled wool"; which is about as edifying as the history 
of more famous schools of philosophy. 



262 WALDEN 

Still grows the vivacious lilac a generation after the door 
and lintel and the sill are gone, unfolding its sweet-scented 
flowers each spring, to be plucked by the musing traveler; 
planted and tended once by children's hands, in front-yard 
plots, — now standing by wall-sides in retired pastures, and 
giving place to new-rising forests ; — the last of that stirp, sole 
survivor of that family. Little did the dusky children think 
that the puny slip Avith its two eyes only, w^hich they stuck 
in the ground in the shadow of the house and daily watered, 
would root itself so, and outlive them, and house itself in the 
rear that shaded it, and grow man's garden and orchard, and 
tell their story faint Ij^ to the lone wanderer a half centuiy 
after they had grown up and died, — blossoming as fair, and 
smelling as sweet, as in that first spring. I mark its still tender, 
civil, cheerful, lilac colors. 

But this small village, germ of something more, why did it 
fail while Concord keeps its ground? Were there no natural 
advantages, — no water j^rivileges, forsooth? Ay, the deep 
Walden Pond and cool Brister's Spring, — privilege to drink 
long and healthy draughts at these, all unimproved by these 
men but to dilute their glass. They were universally a thirsty 
race. Might not the basket, stable-broom, mat-making, corn- 
parching, linen-spinning, and pottery business have thrived 
here, making the wilderness to blossom like the rose, and a 
numerous posterity have inherited the land of their fathers? 
The sterile soil would at least have been proof against a low- 
land degeneracy. Alas! how little does the memory of these 
human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape! 
Again, perhaps, Nature will tiy, with me for a first settler, and 
my house raised last spring to be the oldest in the hamlet. 

I am not aware, that any man has ever built on the spot 
which I occupy. Deliver me from a city built on the site of 
a more ancient city, whose materials are ruins, whose gardens 
cemeteries. The soil is blanched and accursed there, and before 



FORMER INHABITANTS AND WINTER VISITORS 263 

that becomes necessary the earth itself will be destroyed. With 
such reminiscences I repeopled the woods and lulled myself 
asleep. 

At this season I seldom had a visitor. When the snow lay 
deepest no wanderer ventured near my house for a week or 
a fortnight at a time, but there I lived as snug as a meadow 
mouse, or as cattle and poultry which are said to have survived 
for a long time buried in drifts, even without food; or like 
that early settler's family in the town of Sutton, in this state, 
whose cottage was comjiletely covered by the great snow of 
1717 when he was absent, and an Indian found it only by the 
hole which the chimney's breath made in the drift, and so 
relieved the family. But no friendly Indian concerned himself 
about me; nor needed he, for the master of the house was at 
home. The Great Snow ! How cheerful it is to hear of ! When 
the farmers could not get to the woods and swamps with their 
teams, and were obliged to cut down the shade trees before 
their houses, and when the crust was harder cut off the trees 
in the swamps ten feet from the ground, as it appeared the 
next spring. 

In the deepest snow^s, the path Avhich I used from the high- 
way to my house, about half a mile long, might have been 
represented by a meandering dotted line, with wide intervals 
between the dots. For a week of even weather I took exactly 
the same number of steps, and of the same length, coming and 
going, stepping deliberately and with the precision of a pair 
of dividers in my own deep tracks, — to such routine the winter 
reduces us, — yet often they were filled with heaven's own blue. 
But no weather interfered fatally with my walks, or rather my 
going abroad, for I frequently tramjied eight or ten miles 
through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a 
l)eech tree, or a j^ellow-birch, or an old acquaintance among 
the pines ; when the ice and^ snow, causing their limbs to droop, 



264 



WALDEN 



and so sharpening their tops, had changed the pines into fir 
trees; wading to the tops of the highest hills when the snow 
was nearly two feet deep on a level, and shaking down another 
snow-storm on my head at every step; or sometimes creej^ing 
and floundering thither on my hands and knees, when the 
hunters had gone into winter quarters. One afternoon I amused 
myself by watching a barred owl {Strix nehulosa) sitting on 
one of the lower dead limbs of a white-pine, close to the trunk, 
in broad daylight, I standing within a rod of him. He could 
hear me when I moved and crouched the snow with my feet, 
but could not plainly see me. When I made most noise he 
would stretch out his neck, and erect his neck feathers, and 
open his eyes wide; but their lids soon fell again, and he began 
to nod. I too felt a slumberous influence after watching him 
half an hour, as he sat thus with his eyes half open, like a 
cat, winged brother of the cat. There was only a narrow slit 
left between their lids, by which he preserved a peninsular 
relation to me; thus, with half-shut eyes, looking out from 
the land of dreams, and endeavoring to realize me, vague object 
or mote that interrupted his visions. At length, on some louder 
noise or my nearer approach, he would grow uneasy and 
sluggishly turn about on his perch, as if impatient at having 
his dreams disturbed; and when he launched himself off and 
flapped through the pines, spreading his wings to unexpected 
breadth, I could not hear the slightest sound from them. Thus, 
guided amid the pine boughs rather by a delicate sense of their 
neighborhood than by sight, feeling his twilight way as it were 
with his sensitive pinions, he found a new perch, where he 
might in peace await the dawning of his day. 

As I walked over the long causeway made for the railroad 
through the meadows, T encountered many a blustering and 
nipping wind, for nowhere has it freer play; and when the 
frost had smitten me on one cheek, heathen as I was, I turned 
to it the other also. Nor was it much better by the carriage 



FOKMER INHABITANTS AND WINTER VISITORS 265 

road from Brister's Hill. For I came to town still, like a 
friendly Indian, when the contents of the broad, open fields 
were all piled up between the walls of the Walden road, and 
half an hour sufficed to obliterate the tracks of the last traveler. 
And when I returned new drifts would have formed through 
which I floundered, where the busy northwest wind had been 
depositing the powdery snow round a sharp angle in the road, 
and not a rabbit's track, nor even the fine print, the small type, 
of a meadow mouse was to be seen. Yet I rarely failed to find, 
even in mid-winter, some warm and springy swamp where the 
grass and the skunk-cabbage still put forth with perennial 
verdure, and some hardier bird occasionally awaited the return 
of spring. 

Sometimes, notwithstanding the snow, when I returned from 
my walk at evening I crossed the deep tracks of a woodchopper 
leading from my door, and found his pile of whittlings on the 
hearth, and my house filled w^ith the odor of his pipe. Or on 
a Sunday afternoon, if I chanced to be at home, I heard the 
crouching of the snow made by the step of a long-headed 
farmer, who from far through the woods sought my house, to 
have a social "crack"; one of the few of his vocation who are 
"men on their farms"; who donned a frock instead of a pro- 
fessor's gown, and is as ready to extract the moral out of 
church or state as to haul a load of manure from his barn-yard. 
We talked of rude and simple times, when men sat about large 
fires in cold bracing weather, with clear heads; and when other 
dessert failed, we tried our teeth on maiiy a nut which wise 
squirrels have long since abandoned, for those which have the 
thickest shells are commonly empty. 

The one who came from farthest to my lodge, through deepest 
snows and most dismal tempests, • was a poet. A farmer, a 
hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be 
daunted; but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by 
pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings'? His 



266 WALDEN 

business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep. 
AVe made that small house ring with boisterous mirth and 
resound with the murmur of much sober talk, making amends 
then to Walden vale for the long silences. Broadway was 
still and deserted in comparison. At suitable intervals there 
were regular salutes of laughter, which might have been referred 
indifferently to the last-uttered or the forthcoming jest. We 
made many a "bran new" theory of life over a thin dish of 
gruel, which combined the advantages of conviviality with the 
clearheadedness which philosophy requires. 

I should not forget that during my last winter at the pond 
there was another welcome visitor, who at one time came 
through the village, through snow and rain and darkness, till 
he saw my lamp through the' trees and shared with me. some 
long winter evenings. One of the last of the philosophers, — 
Connecticut gave him to the world, — he peddled first her wares, 
afterwards, as he declares, his brains. These he peddles still, 
prompting God and disgracing man, bearing for fruit his brain 
only, like the nut its kernel. I think that he must be the man 
of the most faith of any alive. His words and attitude always 
suppose a better state of things than other men are acquainted 
with, and he will be the last man to be disappointed as the 
ages revolve. He has no venture in the present. But though 
comparatively disregarded now, when his day comes, laws 
unsuspected by most will take effect, and masters of families 
and rulers will come to him for advice. — 

How blind that cannot see serenity! 

A true friend of man ; almost the only friend of human 
progress. An Old Mortality, say rather an Immortality, with 
unwearied patience and faith making plain the image engTaven 
in men's bodies, the God of whom they are but defaced and 
leaning monuments. With his hospitable intellect he embraces 



FORMER INHABITA>^TS AND WINTER VISITORS 267 

children, beggars, insane, and scholars, and entertains the 
thought of all, adding to it commonly some breadth and^ 
elegance. I think that he should keep a caravansary on the 
world's highway, where philosophers of all nations might j^ut 
up, and on his sign should be printed : "Entertainment for 
man, but not for his beast. Enter ye that have leisure and 
a quiet miqd, who earnestly seek the right road." He is 
perhaps the sanest man and has the fewest crotchets of any 
I chance to know ; the same yesterday and tomorrow. Of yore 
we had sauntered and talked, and effectually put the world 
behind us ; for he was pledged to no institution in it, freeborn, 
ingenuus. "Whichever way we turned, it seemed that the heavens 
and the earth had met together, since he enhanced the beauty 
of the landscape. A blue-robed man, whose fittest roof is the 
overarching sky which reflects his serenity. I do not see how 
he can ever die; Nature cannot spare him. 

Having each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat 
and whittled them, trying our knives, and admiring the clear 
yellowish grain of the pumjikin jiine. We waded so gently 
and reverently, or we i:>ulled togetlier so smoothly, that the 
fishes of thought were not scared from the stream, nor feared 
any angler on the bank, but came and went gi'andly, like the 
clouds which float through the western sky, and the mother-o'- 
pearl flocks which sometimes form and dissolve there. There 
we worked, revising mythology, rounding a fable here and 
there, and building castles in the air for which earth offered 
no worthy foundation. Great Looker! Great Expecter! to 
converse with whom was a New England Night's Entertainment. 
Ah! such discourse we had, hermit and philosopher, and the 
old settler I have spoken of, — we three, — it expanded and 
racked my little house; I should not dare to say how many 
])Ounds' weight there was above the atmospheric pressure on 
every circular inch; it opened its seams so that they had to 
be calked with much dulness thereafter to stop the consequent 



268 WALDEN 

leak; — but I had enough of that kind of oakum ah'eady 
picked. 

There was one other with whom I had "solid seasons," long- 
to be remembered, at his house in the village, and who looked 
in upon me from time to time; but I had no more for society 
there. 

There too, as everywhere, I sometimes expected the Visitor 
who never comes. The Vishnu Purana says, "The house-holder 
is to remain at eventide in his courtyard as long as it takes to 
milk a cow, or longer if he pleases, to await the arrival of a 
guest." I often performed this duty of hospitality, waited 
long enough to milk a whole herd of cows, but did not see tlie 
man approaching from the town. 



XV 

WINTER ANIMALS 

Wlien the ponds were firmly frozen, they afforded not only 
new and shorter routes to many points, but new views from 
their surfaces of the familiar landscape around them. When 
I crossed Flint's Pond, after it was covered with snow, though 
I had often paddled about and skated over it, it was so unex- 
pectedly wide and so strange that I could think of nothing 
but Baffin's Bay. The Lincoln hills rose up around me at the 
extremity of a snowy plain, in which I did not remember to 
have stood before; and the fishermen, at an indeterminable 
distance over the ice, moving slowly about with their wolfish 
dogs, passed for sealers or Esquimos, or in misty weather 
loomed like fabulous creatures, and I did not know whether 
they were giants or i^ygTiiies. I took this course when I went 
to lecture in Lincoln in the evening, traveling in no road and 
]iassing no house between my own hut and the lecture room. 
In Goose Pond, which lay in my way, a colony of muskrats 
dwelt, and raised their cabins high above the ice, though none 
could be seen abroad when I crossed it. Walden, being like 
the rest usually bare of snow, or with only shallow and inter- 
rupted drifts on it, was my yard, where I could walk freely 
when the snow was nearly two feet deep on a level elsewhere 
and the villagers were confined to their streets. There, far 
from the village street, and, except at very long intervals, from 
the jingle of sleigh-bells, I slid and skated, as in a vast moose- 
yard well trodden, overhung by oak woods and solemn pines 
bent down with snow or bristling with icicles. 
■ 269 



270 WALDEN 

For sounds in winter nights, and often in winter days, I-^ 
heard the forlorn but melodious note of a hooting owl indefi- 
nitely far; such a sound as the frozen earth would yield if 
struck with a suitable plectrum, the very lingua vernacula of 
Walden Wood, and quite familiar to me at last, though I never 
saw the bird while it was making it. I seldom opened my door 
in a winter evening without hearing it ; Hoo Jioo Jioo, Jioorer hoo, 
sounded sonorously, and the first three syllables accented some- 
what like how der do; or sometimes hoo hoo only. One night 
in the beginning of w^inter, before tlie pond froze over, about 
nine o'clock, I was startled by the loud honking of a goose, 
and, stepping to the door, heard the sound of their wings like 
a tempest in the woods as they flew low over my house. They 
passed over the pond toward Fair-Haven, seemingly deterred 
from settling by my light, their commodore honking all the 
while with a regular beat. Suddenly an unmistakable cat-owl 
from very near me, with the most harsh and tremendous voice 
I ever heard from any inhabitant of the woods, responded at 
regular intervals to the goose, as if determined to expose and 
disgTace this intruder from Hudson's Bay by exhibiting a 
greater compass and volume of voice in a native, and hoo-hoo 
him out of Concord horizon. "VYhat do you mean by alarming 
the citadel at this time of night consecrated to me? Do you 
think I am ever caught napping at such an hour, and that I 
have not got lungs and a larynx as well as yourself? Boo-hoo, 
hoo-hoo, boo-hoo! It was one of the most thrilling discords 
T ever heard. And yet, if you had a discrimin-ating ear, there 
were in it the elements of a concord such as these plains never 
saw nor heard. 

I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great 
bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its 
bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency 
and bad dreams ; or I was waked by "I^he cracking of the ground 
by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door. 



WINTER ANIMALS 271 

and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter 
of a mile long and a third of an inch wide. 

Sometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over the snow 
crust, in moonlight nights, in search of a partridge or other 
game, barking raggedly and demoniacally like forest dogs, as 
i*f laboring with some anxiety, or seeking expression, struggling 
for light and to be dogs outright and run freely in the streets ; 
for if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a 
civilization going on among brutes as well as men? They 
seemed to me to be rudimental, burrowing men, still standing 
on their defense, awaiting their transformation. Sometimes 
one came near to my window, attracted by my light, barked 
a vulpine curse at me, and then retreated. 

Usually the red squirrel (Sciurus Hudsonius) waked me 
in the dawn, coursing over the roof and up and down the sides 
of the house, as if sent out of the woods for this purpose. 
In the course of the winter I threw out half a bushel of ears 
of sweet-corn, which had not got ripe, on to the snow crust by 
my door, and was amused by watching the motions of the 
various animals which were baited by it. In the twilight and 
the night the rabbits came regularly and made a hearty meal. 
x\ll day long the red squirrels came and went, and afforded me 
much entertainment by their maneuvers. One would approach 
at first warily through the shrub-oaks, running over the snow 
crust by fits and starts like a leaf blown by the wind, now a 
few paces this way, with wonderful speed and waste of energy, 
making inconceivable haste with his "trotters," as if it were for 
a wager, and now as many paces that way, but never getting 
on more than half a rod at a time; and then suddenly pausing 
with a ludicrous expression and a gratuitous somerset, as if all 
the eyes in the universe were fixed on him, — for all the motions 
of a squirrel, even in the most solitary recesses of the forest, 
imply spectators as much as those of a dancing girl, — wasting 
more time in delay and circumspection than would have sufficed 



272 WALDEN 

to walk the whole distance, — I never saw one walk, — and then 
suddenly, before you could say Jack Robinson, he would be in 
the top of a young pitch-pine, winding up his clock and chiding 
all imaginary spectators, soliloquizing and talking to all the 
universe at the same time, — for no reason that I could ever 
detect, or he himself was aware of, I suspect. At length he 
would reach the corn, and selecting a suitable ear, brisk about 
in the same uncertain trigonometrical way to the topmost stick 
of my wood-pile, before my window, where he looked me in the 
face, and there sit for hours, supplying himself with a new ear 
from time to time, nibbling at first voraciously and throwing the 
half-naked cobs about ; till at length he grew more dainty still 
and played with his food, tasting only the inside of the kernel, 
and the ear, which was held balanced over the stick by one paw, 
slipped from his careless grasp and fell to the ground, when he 
would look over at it with a ludicrous expression of uncer- 
tainty, as if suspecting that it had life, with a mind not made 
ujD whether to get it again, or a new one, or be off; now think- 
ing of corn, then listening to hear what was in the wind. So 
the little impudent fellow would waste many an ear in a fore- 
noon; till at last, seizing some longer and plumper one, con- 
siderably bigger than himself, and skilfully balancing it, he 
would set out with it to the woods, like a tiger with a buffalo, 
by the same zigzag course and frequent pauses, scratching 
along with it as if it were too heavy for him and falling all the 
while, making its fall a diagonal between a perpendicular and 
horizontal, being determined to put it through at any rate ; — a 
singularly frivolous and whimsical fellow; — and so he would 
get off with it to where he lived, perhaps carry it to the top of a 
]iine tree forty or fifty rods distant, and I would afterwards 
find the cobs strewed about the woods in various directions. 

At length the jays arrive, whose discordant screams were 
heard long before, as they were warily making their approach 
an eighth of a mile off; and in a stealthy and sneaking manner 



WINTER ANIMALS 273 

they tlit from tree to tree, nearer and nearer, and pick up the 
kernels which the squirrels have dropped. Then, sitting on a 
pitch-pine bough, they attempt to swallow in their haste a 
kernel which is too big for their throats and chokes them ; and 
after great labor they disgorge it, and spend an hour in the 
endeavor to crack it by repeated blows with their bills. They 
were manifestly thieves, and I had not much respect for them ; 
but the squirrels, though at first shy, went to work as if they 
were taking what was their own. 

Meanwhile also came the chickadees in flocks, which, picking 
up the crumbs the squirrels had dropped, flew to the nearest 
twig, and, placing them under their claws, hammered away at 
them with their little bills, as if it were an insect in the bark, 
till they were sufficiently reduced for their slender throats. A 
little flock of these titmice came daily to pick a dinner out of 
my wood-pile, or the crumbs at my door, with faint flitting lisp- 
ing notes, like the tinkling of icicles in the grass, or else with 
sprightly day day day, or more rarely, in spring-like days, a 
wiry summery phe-be from the wood-side. They were so famil- 
iar that at length one alighted on an armful of wood which I 
was carrying in, and pecked at the sticks without fear. I once 
had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I 
was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more dis- 
tinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any 
epaulet I could have worn. The squirrels also grew at last to be 
quite familiar, and occasionally stepped upon my shoe, when 
that was the nearest way. 

When the ground was not yet quite covered, and again near 
the end of winter, when the snow was melted on my south hill 
side and about my wood-pile, the partridges came out of the 
woods morning and evening to feed there. Whichever side you 
walk in the woods the partridge bursts away on whirring wings, 
jarring the snow from the dry leaves and twigs on high, which 
comes sifting down in the sunbeams like golden dust; for this 



274 WALDEN 

brave bird is not to be seared by winter. It is frequently cov- 
ei-ed up by drifts, and, it is said, "sometimes plunges from on 
wing into the soft snow, where it remains concealed for a day 
or two." I used to start them in the open land also, where they 
liad come out of the woods at sunset to "bud" the wild apple 
trees. They will come regularly every evening to particular 
trees, where the cunning si:)ortsman lies in wait for them, and 
the distant orchards next the woods suffer thus not a little. I 
am glad that the partridge gets fed, at any rate. It is Nature's 
own bird which lives on buds and diet-drink. 

In dark winter mornings, or in short winter afternoons, I 
sometimes heard a pack of hounds threading all the woods with 
hounding cry and yelp, unable to resist the instinct of the 
chase, and the note of the hunting horn at intervals, proving that 
man was in the rear. The woods ring again, and yet no fox 
bursts forth on to the open level of the pond, nor following 
pack pursuing their Actseon. And perhaps at evening I see 
the hunters returning with a single brush trailing from their 
sleigh for a trophy, seeking their inn. They tell me that if the 
fox would remain in the bosom of the frozen earth he would be 
safe, or if he would run in a straight line away no fox-hound 
could overtake him ; but, having left his pursuers far behind, he 
stops to rest and listen till they come up, and when he runs he 
circles round to his old haunts, where the hunters await him. 
Sometimes, however, he w^ill run upon a wall manj^ rods, and 
then leap off far to one side, and he appears to know that water 
will not retain his scent. A hunter told me that he once saw 
a fox pursued by hounds burst out on to Walden when the ice 
Avas covered with shallow puddles, run part way across, and 
then return to the same shore. Erelong the hounds arrived, but 
here they lost the scent. Sometimes a pack hunting by them- 
selves would pass my door, and circle round my house, and yelp 
and hound without regarding me, as if afflicted by a species of 
madness, so that nothing could divert them from the pursuit. 



WINTER ANIMALS 275 

Thus tliey circle until tliey fall upon the recent trail of a fox, 
for a wise hound will forsake everything else for this. One day 
a man came to my hut from Lexington to inquire after his 
hound that made a large track, and had been hunting for a weelv 
by himself. But I fear that he was not the wiser for all I told 
him, for every time I attempted to answ^er his questions, he 
interrupted me by asking, "What do you do heref He had 
lost a dog, but found a man. 

One old hunter who has a dry tongue, who used to come to 
bathe in Walden once every year when the water was warmest, 
and at such times looked in upon me, told me that many years 
ago he took his gun one afternoon and went out for a cruise in 
Walden Wood, and as he walked the Wayland road he heard 
the cry of hounds approaching, and erelong a fox leaped the 
wall into the road, and as quick as thought leaped the other wall 
out of the road, and his swift bullet had not touched him. Some 
way behind came an old hound and her three pups in full pur- 
suit, hunting on their own account, and disappeared again in 
the woods. Late in the afternoon, as he was resting in the thick 
woods south of Walden, he heard the voice of the hounds far 
over toward Fair-Haven still pursuing the fox; and on they 
came, their hounding cry which made all the woods ring sound- 
ing nearer and nearer, now from Well-Meadow, now from the 
Baker Farm. For a long time he stood still and listened to 
their music, so sweet to a hunter's ear, when suddenly the fox 
appeared, threading the solemn aisles with an easy coursing 
pace, whose sound was concealed by a sympathetic rustle of the 
leaves, swift and still, keeping the ground, leaving his pursuers 
far behind ; and leaping upon a rock amid the woods, he sat erect 
and listening, with his back to the hunter. For a moment com- 
passion restrained the latter's arm; but that was a short-lived 
mood, and as quick as thought can follow thought his piece was 
leveled, and whang! — the fox rolling over the rock lay dead on 
the ground. The hunter still kept his place and listened to the 



276 WALDEN 

hounds. Still on they came, and now the near woods resounded 
through all their aisles with their demoniac cry. At length the 
old hound burst into view with muzzle to the ground, and snap- 
ping the air as if possessed, and ran directly to the rock ; but 
spying the dead fox she suddenly ceased her hounding, as if 
struck dumb with amazement, and walked round and round him 
in silence; and one by one her pups arrived, and, like their 
mother, were sobered into silence by the mystery. Then the 
hunter came forward and stood in their midst, and the mystery 
was solved. They waited in silence while he skinned the fox, 
then followed the brush awhile, and at length turned off into 
the woods again. That evening a Weston Squire came to the 
Concord hunter's cottage to inquire for his hounds, and told 
how for a week they had been hunting on their own account 
from Weston woods. The Concord hunter told him what he 
knew and offered him the skin; but the other declined it and 
departed. He did not find his hounds that night, but the next 
day learned that they had crossed the river and put up at a 
farm-house for the night, whence, having been well fed, they 
took their departure early in the morning. 

The hunter who told me this could remember one Sam Nut- 
ting, who used to hunt bears on Fair-Haven Ledges, and ex- 
change their skins for rum in Concord village; who told him, 
even, that he had seen a moose there. Nutting had a famous 
fox-hound named Burgoyne, — he pronounced it Bugine, — which 
my informant used to borrow. In the "Wast Book" of an old 
trader of this town, who was also a captain, town-clerk, and 
representative, I find the following entry: Jan. 18th, 1742-3, 
"John Melven Cr. by 1 Gray Fox 0—2—3" ; they are not found 
here; and in his ledger, Feb. 7th, 1743, Hezekiah Stratton has 
credit "by Yz a Catt skin — 1 — 4V2" ; of course a wild-cat, for 
Stratton was a sergeant in the old French war, and would not 
have got credit for hunting less noble game. Credit is given for 
deerskins also, and they were daily sold. One man still pre- 



WINTER ANIMALS 277 

serves the horns of the last deer that was killed in this vicinity, 
and another has told me the particulars of the hunt in which his 
uncle was engaged. The hunters were formerly a numerous and 
merry crew here. I remember well one gaunt Nimrod who 
would catch up a leaf by the road-side and play a strain on it 
wilder and more melodious, if my memory serves me, than any 
hunting horn. 

At midnight, when there was a moon, I sometimes met with 
liounds in my path prowling about the woods, which would skulk 
out of my w^ay, as if afraid, and stand silent amid the bushes 
till I had passed. 

Squirrels and wild mice disputed for my store of nuts. There 
were scores of jntch-pines around my house, from one to four 
inches in diameter, which had been gnawed by mice the previous 
winter,- — a Norwegian winter for them, for the snow lay long 
and deep, and they were obliged to mix a large proportion of 
pine bark with their other diet. These trees were alive and 
apparently flourishing at mid-summer, and many of them had 
grown a foot, though completely girdled; but after another 
winter such were without exception dead. It is remarkable 
that a single mouse should thus be allowed a whole x-)ine tree for 
its dinner, gnawing round instead of up and down it; but per- 
haps it is necessary in order to thin these trees, which are wont 
to grow up densely. 

The hares {Lepus Americanus) were very familiar. One had 
her form under vay house all wmter, separated from me only by 
the flooring, and she startled me each morning by her hasty 
departure when I began to stir, — thump, thump, thump, strik- 
ing her head against the floor timbers in her hurry. They used 
to come round my door at dusk to nibble the potato parings 
which I had thrown out, and were so nearly the color of the 
ground that they could liardly be distinguished when still. 
Sometimes in the twilight I alternately lost and recovered sight 
of one sitting motionless under my window. When I opened my 



278 WALDEN 

door in the evening, off they would go with a squeak and a 
bounce. Near at hand they only excited my pity. One evening 
one sat by my door two paces from me, at first trembling with 
fear, yet unwilling to move ; a poor wee thing, lean and bony, 
with ragged ears and sharp nose, scant tail and slender paws. 
It looked as if Nature no longer contained the breed of nobler 
bloods, but stood on her last toes. Its large eyes appeared 
young and unhealthy, almost dropsical. I took a step, and lo, 
away it scudded with an elastic spring over the snow crust, 
straightening its body and its limbs into graceful length, and 
soon jDut the forest between me and itself, — the wild free veni- 
son, asserting its vigor and the dignity of Nature. Not without 
reason was its slenderness. Such then was its nature. (Lepus, 
levipeSf lightfoot, some think.) 

What is a country without rabbits and partridges'? They 
are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; 
ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern 
times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied 
to leaves and to the ground, — and to one another; it is either 
winged or it is legged. It is hardly as if you had seen a wild 
creature when a rabbit or a partridge bursts away, only a nat- 
ural one, as much to be expected as rustling leaves. The iiar- 
tridge and the rabbit are still sure to thrive, like true natives of 
the soil, whatever revolutions occur. If the forest is cut off, the 
sprouts and bushes which spring up afford them concealment, 
and they become more numerous than ever. That must be a 
poor country indeed that does not support a hare. Our woods 
teem with them both, and around every swamp may be seen the 
jiartridge or rabbit walk, beset with twiggy fences and horse- 
hair snares, which some cowboy tends. 



XVI 

THE POND IN WINTER 

After a still winter night I awoke with the impression that 
some question had been put to me, which I had been endeavor- 
ing in vain to answer in my sleep, as what — how — when — 
where? But there was dawning Nature, in whom all creatures 
live, looking in at my broad windows with serene and satisfied 
face, and no question on her lips. I awoke to an answered ques- 
tion, to Nature and daylight. The snow hdng deep on the earth 
dotted with young pines, and the very slope of the hill on which 
my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward ! Nature puts no 
question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long 
ago taken her resolution. "0 Prince, our eyes contemplate with 
admiration and transmit to the soul the wonderful and varied 
spectacle of this universe. The night veils without doubt a part 
of this glorious creation ; but day comes to reveal to us this 
great work, which extends from earth even into the plains of 
the ether." 

Then to my morning work. First I take an axe and pail and 
go in search of water, if that be not a dream. After a cold and 
snowy night it needed a divining rod to find it. Every win- 
ter the liquid and trembling surface of the pond, which was 
so sensitive to every breath, and reflected every light and 
shadow, becomes solid to the depth of a foot or a foot and a half, 
so that it will support the heaviest teams, and perchance the 
snow covers it to an equal depth, and it is not to be distinguished 
from anj' level field. Like the marmots in the surrounding hills, 

279 



280 WALDEN" 

it closes its eyelids and becomes dormant for three months or " 
more. Standing on the snow-covered plain, as if in a pasture 
amid the hills, I cut my way first through a foot of snow, and 
then a foot of ice, and open a window under my feet, where, 
kneeling to drink, I look down into the quiet parlor of the 
fishes, pervaded by a softened light as through a window of 
ground glass, with its bright sanded floor the same as in summer ; 
there a perennial waveless serenity reigns as in the amber twi- 
light sky, corresponding to the cool and even temperament of 
the inhabitants. Heaven is under our feet as well as over our 
heads. 

Early in the morning, while all things are crisp with frost, 
men come with fishing reels and slender lunch, and let down 
their fine lines through the snowy field to take pickerel and 
perch; wild men, who instinctively follow other fashions and 
trust other authorities than their townsmen, and by their goings 
and comings stitch towns together in parts where else they would 
be ripped. They sit and eat their luncheon in stout fear- 
naughts on the dry oak leaves on the shore, as wise in natural 
lore as the citizen is in artificial. They never consulted with 
books, and know and can tell much less than they have done. 
The things which they practice are said not yet to be known. 
Here is one- fishing for pickerel with grown perch for bait. 
You look into his pail with w^onder as into a summer pond, as 
if he kept summer locked up at home, or knew where she had 
retreated. How, pray, did he get these in mid-winter? Oh, he 
got worms out of rotten logs since the ground froze, and so he 
caught them. His life itself passes deeper in Nature than the 
studies of the naturalist penetrate; himself a subject for the 
naturalist. The latter raises the moss and bark gently with his 
knife in search of insects; the former lays open logs to their 
core with his axe, and moss and bark fly far and wide. He gets 
his living by barking trees. Such a man has some right to fish, 
and I love to see Nature carried out in him. The perch swal- 



THE POND IN WINTER 281 

lows the gTiib-worm, the pickert 1 swallows the perch, and the 
fisherman swallows the pickerel; and so all the chinks in the 
scale of being are filled. 

When I strolled around the pond in misty weather I was 
sometimes amused by the primitive mode which some ruder 
fisherman had adopted. He would perhaps have placed alder 
branches over the narrow holes in the ice, which were four or 
five rods apart and an equal distance from the shore, and having 
fastened the end of the line to a stick to prevent its being pulled 
through, have passed the slack line over a twig of the alder, a 
foot or more above the ice, and tied a dry oak leaf to it, which, 
being pulled down, would show when he had a bite. These 
alders loomed through the mist at regular intervals as you 
Avalked halfway round the pond. 

Ah, the pickerel of Walden ! when I see them lying on the 
ice, or in the well which the fisherman cuts in the ice, making a 
little hole to admit the water, I am always surprised by their 
rare beauty, as if they were fabulous fishes, they are so foreign 
to the streets, even to the woods, foreign as Arabia to our Con- 
cord life. They possess a quite dazzling and transcendent 
beauty which separates them by a wide interval from the 
cadaverous cod and haddock whose fame is trumjieted in our 
streets. They are not green like the pines, nor gray like the 
stones, nor blue like the sky ; but they have, to my eyes, if pos- 
sible, yet rarer colors, like flowers and precious stones, as if 
they were the pearls, and animalized nuclei or crystals of the 
Walden water. They, of course, are Walden all over and all 
through; are themselves small Waldens in the animal kingdom, 
Waldenses. It is surprising that they are caught here, — that 
in this deep and capacious spring, far beneath the rattling teams 
and chaises and tinkling sleighs that travel the Walden road, 
this great gold and emerald fish swims. I never chanced to see 
its kind in any market; it would be the cynosure of all eyes 
there. Easily, with a few convulsive quirks, they give up their 



282 AVALDEN 

watery ghosts, like a mortal translated before his time to the 
thin air of heaven. 

As I was desirous to recover the long-lost bottom of Walden 
Pond, I surveyed it carefully, before the ice broke up, early in 
'46, with compass and chain and sounding line. There have 
been many stories told about the bottom, or rather no bottom, 
of this pond, which certainly had no foundation for themselves. 
It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness 
of ?. pond without taking the trouble to sound it. I have visited 
two such Bottomless Ponds in one walk in this neighborhood. 
Many have believed that Walden reached quite through to the 
other side of the globe. Some who have lain fiat on the ice for 
a long time, looking down through the illusive medium, per- 
chance Avith watery eyes into the bargain, and driven to hasty 
conclusions by the fear of catching cold in their breasts, have 
seen vast holes "into which a load of hay might be driven,'' if 
there were anybody to drive it, the undoubted source of the 
Styx and entrance to the Infernal Regions from these parts. 
Others have gone down from the village with a "fifty-six" and 
a wagon load of inch rope, but yet have failed to find any bot- 
tom ; for while the "fifty-six" was resting by the w^ay, they w^ere 
paying out the rope in the vain attempt to fathom their truly 
immeasurable capacity for marvelousness. But I can assure 
my readers that Walden has a reasonably tight bottom at a not 
unreasonable, though at an unusual depth. I fathomed it easily 
with a cod-line and a stone weighing about a pound and a hal f, 
and could tell accurately when the stone left the bottom, by 
having to pull so much harder before the water got underneath 
to help me. The greatest "depth was exactly one hundred and 
two feet; to which may be added the five feet which it has 
risen since, making one hundred and seven. This is a remark- 
able depth for so small an area; yet not an inch of it can be 
spared by the imagination. What if all ponds were shallow? 



THE POND IN WINTER 283 

Would it not react on the minds of men? I am thankful that 
this i)ond was made deep and pure for a symbol. While men 
believe in the infinite some ponds will be thought to be 
bottomless. 

A factory owner, hearing what depth I had found, thought 
that it could not be true, for, judging from his acquaintance 
Avith dajns, sand would not lie at so steep an angle. But the 
deepest ponds are not so deep in proportion to their area as 
most suppose, and, if drained, would not leave very remarkable 
valleys. They are not like cups between the hills ; for this one, 
which is so unusually deep for its area, appears in a vei'tical 
section through its center not deeper than a shallow plate. 
Most ponds, emptied, would leave a meadow no more hollow 
than we frequently see. William Gilpin, who is so admirable in 
all that relates to landscapes, and usually so correct, standing 
at the head of Loch Fyne, in Scotland, which he describes as "a 
bay of salt water, sixty or seventy fathoms deep, four miles in 
breadth," and about fifty miles long, surrounded by mountains, 
observes, "If Ave could haA^e seen it immediately after the 
diluvian crash, or Avhatever convulsion of Nature occasioned it, 
before the Avaters gushed in, what a horrid chasm it must have 
appeared ! 

So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low 
Down sunk a hollow bottom, broad, and deep, 
Capacious bed of waters 

But if, using the shortest diameter of Loch Fyne, Ave apply 
these proportions to Walden, Avhich, as we have seen, appears 
already in a vertical section only like a shalloAV plate, it will 
appear four times as shallow. So much for the increased hor- 
rors of the chasm of Loch Fyne when emptied. No doubt many 
a smiling valley with its stretching cornfields occupies exactly 
such a "horrid chasm," from which the waters have receded, 
though it requires the insight and the far sight of the geologist 



284 WALDEN 

to convince the unsuspecting inhabitants of this fact. Often an 
inquisitive eye may detect the shores of a primitive lake in the 
low horizon hills, and no subsequent elevation of the plain have 
been necessary to conceal their history. But it is easiest, as they 
who work on the highways know, to find the hollows by the 
l^uddles after a shower. The amount of it is, the imagination, 
give it the least license, dives deeper and soars higher than 
Nature goes. So, probably, the depth of the ocean will be 
found to be very inconsiderable compared with its breadth. 

As I sounded through the ice I could determine the shape of 
the bottom with greater accuracy than is possible in surveying 
harbors which do not freeze over, and I was surprised at its 
general regularity. In the deepest part there are several acres 
more level than almost any field which is exposed to the sun, 
wind, and plow. In one instance, on a line arbitrarily chosen, 
the depth did not vary more than one foot in thirty rods ; and 
generally, near the middle, I could calculate the variation for 
each one hundred feet in any direction beforehand within three 
or four inches. Some are accustomed to speak of deep and 
dangerous holes even in quiet sandy ponds like this, but the 
effect of water under these circumstances is to level all inequali- 
ties. The regularity of the bottom and its conformity to the 
shores and the range of the neighboring hills were so perfect 
that a distant promontory betrayed itself in the soundings quite 
across the pond, and its direction could be determined by 
obser\-ing the opposite shore. Cape becomes bar, and plain 
shoal, and valley and gorge deep water and channel. 

When I had mapped the pond by the scale of ten rods to an 
inch, and put down the soundings, more than a hundred in all, 
I observed this remarkable coincidence. Having noticed that 
the number indicating the greatest depth was apparently in the 
center of the map, I laid a rule on the map lengthwise, and then 
breadthwise, and found, to my surprise, that the line of greatest 
length intersected the line of greatest breadth exactly at the 



THE POND IN WINTER 285 

point of greatest G3ptli, notwithstanding that the middle is so 
nearly level, the outline of the pond far from regular, and the 
extreme length and breadth were got by measuring into the 
coves; and I said to myself, Who knows but this hint would 
conduct to the deepest part of the ocean as well as of a pond 
or puddle ? Is not this the rule also for the height of mountains, 
regarded as the opposite of valleys? We know that a hill is not 
highest at its narrowest part. 

Of five coves, three, or all which had been sounded, were 
observed to have a bar quite across their mouths and deeper 
water within, so that the hscy tended to be an expansion of 
water within the land not only horizontally but vertically, and 
to form a basin or independent pond, the direction of the two 
capes showing the course of the bar. Every harbor on the sea- 
coast, also, has its bar at its entrance. In proportion as the 
mouth of the cove was Avider compared with its length, the 
water over the bar was deeper compared with that in the basin. 
Given, then, the length and breadth of the cove, and the char- 
acter of the surrounding shore, and you have almost elements 
enough to make out a formula for all cases. 

In order to see how nearly I could guess, with this experience, 
at the deepest jioint in a pond, by observing the outlines of its 
surface and the character of its shores alone, I made a plan of 
\Mnte Pond, which contains about forty-one acres, and, like 
this, has no island in it, nor any visible inlet or outlet ; and as 
the line of greatest breadth fell very near the line of least 
breadth, where two opjDosite capes approached each other and 
two opposite bays receded, I ventured to mark a point a short 
distance from the latter line, but still on the line of greatest 
length, as the deepest. The deepest part was found to jv. 
within one hundred feet of this, still farther in the direction to 
which I had inclined, and was only one foot deeper, namely 
sixty feet. Of course, a stream running through, or an island 
in the pond, would make the problem much more complicated. 



286 WALDEN 

If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one 
fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all 
the particular results at that point. Now we know only a few 
laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion 
or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential 
elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony 
are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but 
the harmony which results from a far greater number of seem- 
ingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not 
detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as 
our points of view, as, to the traveler, a mountain outline varies 
with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though 
absolutely but one form. Even when cleft or bored through it 
is not comprehended in its entireness. 

What I have observed of the pond is no less true in ethics. 
It is the law of average. Such a rule of the two diameters not 
only guides us toward the sun in the system and the heart in 
man; but draw lines through the length and breadth of the 
aggregate of a man's particular daily behaviors and waves of 
life into his coves and inlets, and where they intersect will be 
the height or depth of his character. Perhaps we need only to 
know how his shores trend and his adjacent country or circum- 
stances, to infer his depth and concealed bottom. If he is sur- 
rounded by mountainous circumstances, an Achillean shore, 
whose peaks overshadow and are reflected in his bosom, they 
suggest a corresponding depth in him. But a low and smooth 
shore proves him shallow on that side. In our bodies, a bold 
projecting brow falls off to and indicates a corresponding depth 
of thought. Also there is a bar across the entrance of our every 
cove, or particular inclination; each is our harbor for a season, 
in which we are detained anS partially land-locked. These 
inclinations are not whimsical usually, but their form, size, and 
direction are determined by the promontories of the shore, the 
ancient axes of elevation. Wlien this bar is gradually increased 



THE POND IN WINTER 287 

by storms, tides, or currents, or there is a subsidence of the 
waters, so that it reaches to tlie surface, that which was at first 
but an inclination in the shore in which a thought was har- 
bored becomes an individual lake, cut off from the ocean, 
wherein the thought secures its own conditions, changes, per- 
haps, from salt to fresh, becomes a sweet sea, dead sea, or a 
marsh. At the advent of each individual into this life, may we 
not suppose that such a bar has risen to the surface somewhere ? 
It is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for 
the most part, stand off and on upon a harborless coast, are 
conversant only with the bights of the bays of poesy, or steer 
for the public ports of entry, and go into the dry docks of 
science, where they merely refit for this world, and no natural 
currents concur to indi\d dualize them. 

As for the inlet or outlet of Walden, I have not discovered 
any but rain and snow and evaporation, though perhaps, Avith a 
thermometer and a line, such places may be found, for where 
the Avater flows into the pond it will probably be coldest in 
summer and warmest in winter. When the ice-men were at 
work here in '46-7, the cakes sent to the shore were one day 
rejected by those who were stacking them up there, not being 
thick enough to lie side by side with the rest; and. the cutters 
thus discovered that the ice over a small space was two or three 
inches thinner than elsewhere, which made them think that there 
was an inlet there. They also showed me in another place 
what they thought was a "leach hole," through which the jDond 
leaked out under a hill into a neighboring meadow, pushing me 
out on a cake of ice to see it. It was a small cavity under ten 
feet of water ; but I think that I can warrant the pond not to 
need soldering till they find a worse leak than that. One has 
suggested that if such a "leach hole" should be found, its con- 
nection with the meadow, if any existed, might be proved by 
conveying some colored powder or sawdust to the mouth of the 
hole, and then putting a strainer over the spring in the meadow, 



288 WALDEN 

which would catch some of the particles carried through by the 
current. 

While I was surveying, the ice, which was sixteen inches 
thick, undulated under a slight wind like water. It is well 
known that a level cannot be used on ice. At one rod from the 
shore its greatest fluctuation, when observed by means of a 
level on land directed toward a graduated staff on the ice, was 
three quarters of an inch, though the ice appeared firmly at- 
tached to the shore. It was probably greater in the middle. 
Who knows but if our instruments were delicate enough we 
might detect an undulation in the crust of the earth? When 
two legs of my level were on the shore and the third on the ice, 
and the sights were directed over the latter, a rise or fall of the 
ice of an almost infinitesimal amount made a difference of sev- 
eral feet on a tree across the pond. When I began to cut holes 
for sounding, there were three or four inches of water on the 
ice under a deep snow which had sunk it thus far; but the water 
began immediately to run into these holes, and continued to run 
for two days in deep streams, which wore away the ice on every 
side, and contributed essentially, if not mainly, to dry the sur- 
face of the pond ; for, as the water ran in, it raised and floated 
the ice. This was somewhat like cutting a hole in the bottom of 
~a ship to let the water out. When such holes freeze, and a rain 
succeeds, and finally a new freezing forms a fresh smooth ice 
over all, it is beautifully mottled internally by dark figures, 
shaped somewhat like a spider's web, what you may call ice 
rosettes, produced by the channels worn by the water flowing 
from all sides to a center. Sometimes, also, when the ice was 
covered with shallow puddles, I saw a double shadow of myself, 
one standing on the head of the other, one on the ice, the other 
on the trees or hill side. 

While yet it is cold January, and snow and ice are thick and 
solid, the prudent landlord comes from the village to get ice to 



THE POND IN WINTER 289 

cool his summer drink ; impressively, even pathetically wise, to 
foresee the heat and thirst of July now in January, — wearing 
a thick coat and mittens! when so many things are not pro- 
vided for. It may be that he lays up no treasures in this world 
which will cool his summer drink in the next. He cuts and 
saws the solid pond, unroofs the house of fishes, and carts off 
their very element and air, held fast by chains and stakes like 
corded wood, through the favoring winter air, to wintry cellars, 
to underlie the summer there. It looks like solidified azure, as, 
far off, it is drawn through the streets. These ice-cutters are a 
merry race, full of jest and sport, and when I went among them 
they were w^ont to invite me to saw pit-fashion with them, I 
standing underneath. 

In the winter of '46-7 there came a hundred men of Hyper- 
borean extraction swoop down on to our pond one morning, 
with many car-loads of ungainly-looking farming tools, sleds, 
plows, drill-borrows, turf-knives, spades, saws, rakes, and 
each man was armed with a double-pointed pike-staff, such as 
is not described in the New England Farmer or the Cultivator. 
I did not know whether they had come to sow a crop of winter 
rye, or some other kind of grain recently introduced from Ice- 
land. As I saw no manure, I judged that they meant to skim 
the land, as I had done, thinking the soil was deep and had lain 
fallow long enough. They said that a gentleman farmer, who 
was behind the scenes, wanted to double his money, which, as I 
understood, amounted to half a million already; but, in order 
to cover each one of his dollars with another, he took off the 
only coat, ay, the skin itself, of Walden Pond in the midst of a 
hard winter. They went to work at once, plowing, harrowing, 
rolling, furrowing, in admirable order, as if they were bent on 
making this a model farm ; but when I was looking sharp to see 
what kind of seed they dropped into the furrow, a gang of 
fellows by my side suddenly began to hook up the virgin mold 
itself, with a peculiar jerk, clean down to the sand, or rather 



290 WALDEN 

the water, — for it was a very springy soil, — indeed, all the 
lerra firma there was, — and haul it away on sleds, and then I 
^,a8ssed that they must be cutting peat in a bog. So they came 
and went every day, with a peculiar shriek from the locomotive, 
from and to some point of the polar regions, as it seemed to me, 
like a flock of arctic snow-birds. But sometimes Squaw Walden 
had her revenge, and a hired man, walking behind his team, 
slipped through a crack in the gi'ound down toward Tartarus, 
and he who was so brave before suddenly became but the ninth 
part of a man, almost gave up his animal heat, and was glad 
to take refuge in my house, and acknowledged that there was 
some virtue in a stove ; or sometimes the frozen soil took a piece 
of steel out of a plowshare, or a plow got set in the furrow and 
had to be cut out. 

To speak literally, a hundred Irishmen, with Yankee over- 
seers, came from Cambridge every day to get out the ice. They 
divided it into cakes by methods too well known to require 
description, and these, being sledded to the shore, were rapidly 
hauled off on to an ice platform, and raised by grappling irons 
and block and tackle, worked by horses, on to a stack, as surely 
as so many barrels of flour, and there placed evenly side by 
side, and row upon row, as if they formed the solid base of an 
obelisk designed to pierce the clouds. They told me that in a 
good day they could get out a thousand tons, which was the 
yield of about one acre. Deep ruts and "cradle holes" were 
worn in the ice, as on terra firma, by the passage of the sleds 
over the same track, and the horses invariably ate their oats 
out of cakes of ice hollowed out like buckets. They stacked up 
the cakes thus in the open air in a pile thirty-five feet high on 
one side and six or seven rods square, putting hay between the 
outside layers to exclude the air; for when the wind, though 
never so cold, finds a passage through, it will wear large cavi- 
ties, leaving slight supports or studs only here and there, and 
finally topple it down. At first it looked like a vast blue fort 



THE POND IN WINTER 291 

or Valhalla; but when they began to tuck the coarse meadow 
hay into the crevices, and this became covered with rime and 
icicles, it looked like a venerable moss-grown and hoary ruin, 
built of azure-tinted marble, the abode of Winter, that old 
man we see in the almanac, — his shanty, as if he had a 
design to estivate with us. They calculated that not twenty- 
five per cent of this would reach its destination, and that two 
or three per cent would be wasted in the cars. However, a 
still greater part of this heap had a different destiny from what 
was intended; for, either because the ice was found not to 
keep so well as was expected, containing more air than usual, 
or for some other reason, it never got to market. This heap, 
made in the winter of '46-7 and estimated to contain ten thou- 
sand tons, was finally covered with hay and boards ; and though 
it was unroofed the following July, and a part of it carried off, 
the rest remaining exposed to the sun, it stood over that sum- 
mer and the next winter, and was not quite melted till Septem- 
ber, 1848. Thus the pond recovered the greater part. 

Like the water, the Walden ice, seen near at hand, has a 
green tint, but at a distance is beautifully blue, and you can 
easily tell it from the white ice of the river, or the merely green- 
ish ice of some ponds, a quarter of a mile off. Sometimes one 
of those great cakes slips from the ice-man's sled into the village 
street, and lies there for a week like a great emerald, an object 
of interest to all passers. I have noticed that a portion of 
Walden which in the state of water was green will often, when 
frozen, appear from the same point of view blue. So the hol- 
lows about this pond will, sometimes, in the winter, be filled 
with a greenish water somewhat like its own, but the next day 
will have frozen blue. Perhaps the blue color of water and ice 
is due to the light and air they contain^ and the most trans- 
parent is the bluest. Ice is an interesting subject for contem- 
plation. They told me that they had some in the ice-houses at 
Fresh Pond five years old which was as good as ever. Why is 



292 WALDEN 

it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid, but frozen 
remains sweet forever? It is commonly said that this is the 
difference between the affections and the intellect. 

Thus for sixteen days I saw from my window a hundred 
men at work like busy husbandmen, with teams and horses and 
apparently all the implements of farming, such a picture as we 
see on the first page of the almanac; and as often as I looked 
out I was reminded of the fable of the lark and the reapers, or 
the parable of the sower, and the like; and now they are all 
gone, and in thirty days more, probably, I shall look from the 
same window on the pure sea-green Walden water there, reflect- 
ing the clouds and the trees, and sending up its evaporations in 
solitude, and no traces will appear that a man has ever stood 
there. Perhaps I shall hear a solitary loon laugh as he dives 
and plumes himself, or shall see a lonely fisher in his boat, like 
a floating leaf, beholding his form reflected in the waves, where 
lately a hundred men securely labored. 

Thus it appears that the sweltering inhabitants of Charleston 
and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink 
at my well. In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupen- 
dous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta, since 
whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in com- 
parison with which our modern world and its literature seem 
puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be 
referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sub- 
limity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my 
well for water, and lo ! there I meet the servant of the Brahmin, 
priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his 
temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root 
of a tree with his crust and water jug. I meet his servant come 
to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate 
together in the same Avell. The joure Walden water is mingled 
with the sacred water of the Ganges. With favoring winds it 
is wafted past the site of the fabulous islands of Atlantis and 



THE POND IN WINTER 293 

the Hesperides, makes the peripkis of Hanno, and, floating by 
Ternate and Tidore and the mouth of the Persian Gulf, melts 
in the tropic gales of the Indian seas, and is landed in ports of 
which Alexander only heard the names. 



XVII 

SPRING 

The opening of large tracts by the iee-cutters commonly 
causes a pond to break up earlier; for the water, agitated by 
the wind, even in cold weather, wears away the surrounding ice. 
But such was not the effect on Walden that year, for she had 
soon got a thick new garment to take the place of the old. This 
pond never breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, 
on account both of its greater depth and its having no stream 
passing through it to melt or wear away the ice. I never knew 
it to open in the course of a Avinter, not excepting that of '52-3, 
which gave the ponds so severe a trial. It commonly opens 
about the first of April, a week or ten days later than Flint's 
Pond and Fair-Haven, beginning to melt on the north side and 
in the shallower parts where it began to freeze. It indicates 
better than any water hereabouts the absolute progress of the 
season, being least affected by transient changes of temperature. 
A severe cold of a few days' duration in March may very much 
retard the opening of the former ponds, while the temperature 
of Walden increases almost uninterruptedly. A thermometer 
thrust into the middle of Walden on the 6th of March, 1847, 
stood at 32°, or freezing point; near the shore at 33°; in the* 
middle of Flint's Pond, the same day, at 32i/2° ; at a dozen rods 
from the shore, in shallow water, nnder ice a foot thick, at 36°. 
This difference of three and a half degrees between the tem- 
l)erature of the deep water and the shallow in the latter pond, 
and the fact that a great })roportion of it is comparatively 
shallow, show why it should break up so much sooner than 

294 



SPRING 295 

Walden. The ice in the shallowest part was at this time several 
inches thinner than in the middle. In mid-winter the middle 
had been the warmest and the ice thinnest there. So, also, 
every one who has waded about the shores of a pond in summer 
must have perceived how much warmer the water is close to 
the shore, where only three or four inches deep, than a little 
distance out, and on the surface where it is deep, than near the 
bottom. In spring the sun not only exerts an influence through 
the increased temperature of the air and earth, but its heat 
passes through ice a foot or more thick, and is reflected from 
the bottom in shallow water, and so also warms the water and 
melts the under side of the ice, at the same time that it is melt- 
ing it more directly above, making it uneven, and causing the 
air bubbles which it contains to extend themselves upward and 
downward until it is completely honeycombed, and at last dis- 
appears suddenly in a single spring rain. Ice has its grain as 
well as wood, and when a cake begins to rot or "comb," that is, 
assume the appearance of honey-comb, whatever may be its 
position, the air cells are at right angles with what was the 
water surface. Where there is a rock or a log rising near to 
the surface the ice over it is much thinner, and is frequently 
quite dissolved by this reflected heat ; and I have been told that 
in the experiment at Cambridge to freeze water in a shallow 
wooden jDond, though the cold air circulated underneath, and so 
had access to both sides, the reflection of the sun from the bot- 
tom more than counterbalanced this advantage. When a Avarm 
rain in the middle of the winter melts off the snow-ice from 
Walden, and leaves a hard, dark, or transjDarent ice on the 
middle, there will be a strip of rotten though thicker white ice, 
a rod or more wide, about the shores, created by this reflected 
heat. Also, as I have said, the bubbles themselves within the 
ice operate as burning-glasses to melt the ice beneath. 

The phenomena of the year take place every day in a i>ond 
on a small scale. Every morning, generally speaking, the shal- 



296 WALDEN 

low water is being warmed more rapidly than the d^ep, though 
it may not be made so warm after all, and every evening it is 
being cooled more rapidly until the morning. The day is an 
epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and 
evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer. 
The cracking and booming of the ice indicate a change of tem- 
perature. One pleasant morning after a cold night, February 
"^Ith, 1850, having gone to Flint's Pond to spend the day, I 
noticed with surprise that when I struck the ice with the head 
of my axe, it resounded like a gong for many rods around, or 
as if I had struck on a tight drum-head. The pond began to 
boom about an hour after sunrise, when it felt the influence of 
the sun's rays slanted upon it from over the hills; it stretched 
itself and yawned like a waking man with a gradually increas- 
ing tumult, which was kept up three or four hours. It took a 
short siesta at noon, and boomed once more toward night, as 
the sun was withdrawing his influence. In the right stage of the 
weather a pond fires its evening gun with great regularity. But 
in the middle of the day, being full of cracks, and the air also 
being less elastic, it had completely lost its resonance, and 
probably fishes and muskrats could not then have been stunned 
by a blow on it. The fishermen say that the "thundering of the 
pond" scares the fishes and prevents their biting. The pond 
does not thunder every evening, and I cannot tell surely when 
to jxpeet its thundering; but though I may perceive no differ- 
ence in the weather, it does. Who would have suspected so 
large and cold and thick-skinned a thing to be so sensitive ? Yet 
it has its law to which it thunders obedience when it should as 
surely as the buds expand in the spring. The earth is all alive 
and covered with papillae. The largest pond is as sensitive to 
atmospheric changes as the globule of mercury in its tube. 

One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I 
should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in. 



SPRING 297 

The ice in the pond at length begins to be honeycombed, and 1 
can set my heel in it as I walk. Fogs and rains and warmer 
suns are gradually melting the snow ; the days have grown sen- 
sibly longer ; and I see how I shall get through the winter with- 
out adding to my wood-pile, for large fires are no longer neces- 
sary. I am on the alert for the first signs of spring, to hear the 
chance note of some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel's chirp, 
for his stores must be now nearly exhausted, or see the wood- 
chuck venture out of his winter quarters. On the 13th of 
March, after I had heard the bluebird, song-sparrow, and red- 
wing, the ice was still nearly a foot thick. As the weather grew 
warmer, it was not sensibly worn away by the water, nor broken 
up and floated off as in rivers, but, though it was completely 
melted for half a rod in width about the shore, the middle was 
merely honeycombed and saturated with water, so that you 
could put your foot through it when six inches thick ; but by the 
next day evening, perhaps, after a warm rain followed by fog, 
it would have wholly disappeared, all gone off with the fog, 
spirited away. One year I went across the middle only five 
5ays before it disappeared entirely. In 1845 Walden was first 
completely open on the 1st of April ; in '46, the 25th of March ; 
in '47, the 8th of April; in '51, the 28th of March; in '52, the 
18th of April; in '53, the 23rd of March; in '54, about the 7th 
of April. 

Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers 
and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly inter- 
esting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. "When 
the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the 
ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, 
as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a 
few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out 
of the mud with quakings of the earth. One old man, who has 
been a close observer of Nature, and seems as thoroughly wise 
in regard to all her operations as if she had been put upon the 



298 WALDEN 

stocks when he was a boy, and he had helped to lay her keel, — 
who has come to his growth, and can hardly acquire more of 
natural lore if he should live to the age of Methuselah, — told 
me, and I was surprised to hear him express wonder at any of 
Nature's operations, for I thought that there were no secrets 
between them, that one spring day he took his gun and boat, 
and thought that he would have a little sport with the ducks. 
There was ice still on the meadows, but it was all gone out of 
the river, and he dropped down without obstruction from Sud- 
bury, where he lived, to Fair-Haven Pond, which he found, 
unexpectedly, covered for the most part with a firm field of ice. 
It was a warm day, and he was surprised to see so great a body 
of ice remaining. Not seeing any ducks, he hid his boat on the 
north or back side of an island in the pond, and then concealed 
himself in the bushes on the south side, to await them. The ice 
was melted for three or four rods from the shore, and there 
was a smooth and warm sheet of water, with a muddy bottom, 
such as the ducks love, within, and he thought it likely that 
some would be along pretty soon. After he had lain still there 
about an hour he heard a low and seemingly very distant sound, 
but singularly grand and impressive, unlike anything he had 
ever heard, gradually swelling and increasing as if it would 
have a universal and memorable ending, a sullen rush and roar, 
which seemed to him all at once like tlie sound of a vast body of 
fowl coming in to settle there, and, seizing his gun, he started 
up in haste and excited; but he found, to his surprise, that the 
whole body of the ice had started while he lay there, and drifted 
in to the shore, and the sound he had heard was made by its 
edge grating on the shore, — at first gently nibbled and crumbled 
off, but at length heaving up and scattering its wrecks along 
the island to a considerable height before it came to a standstill. 
At length the sun's rays have attained the right angle, and 
warm winds blow up mist and rain and melt the snow-banks, 
and the sun dispersing the mist smiles on a checkered landscape 



SPRING 299 

of russet and white smoking with incense, through which the 
traveler picks his way from islet to islet, cheered by the music 
of a thousand tinkling rills and rivulets whose veins are filled 
with the blood of winter which they are bearing off. 

Few phenomena gave me more delight than to observe the 
forms which thawing sand and clay assume in flowing down the 
sides of a deep cut on the railroad through which I passed on 
my way to the village, a phenomenon not very common on so 
large a scale, though the number of freshly exposed banks of 
the right material must have been greatly multiplied since 
railroads were invented. The material was sand of every degree 
of fineness and of various rich colors, commonly mixed with 
a little clay. When the frost comes out in the spring, and even 
in a thawing day in the winter, the sand begins to flow down 
the slopes like lava, sometimes bursting out through the snow 
and overflowing it where no sand was to be seen before. 
Innumerable little streams overlaj^ and interlace one with 
another, exhibiting a sort of hybrid product, which obeys 
halfway the law of currents, and halfway that of vegetation. 
As it flows it takes the forms of sappy leaves or vines, making 
heaps of pulpy sprays a foot or more in depth, and resembling, 
as you look down on them, the laciniated, lobed, and imbricated 
thalluses of some lichens; or you are reminded of coral, of 
leopards' paws or birds' feet, of brains or lungs or bowels, 
and excrements of all kinds. It is a truly grotesque vege- 
tation, whose forms and color we see imitated in 'bronze, a 
sort of architectural foliage more ancient and typical than 
acanthus, chicory, ivy, vine, or any vegetable leaves; destined 
perhaps, under some circumstances, to become a puzzle to 
future geologists. The whole cut impressed me as if it were 
a cave with its stalactites laid open to the light. The various 
shades of the sand are singularly rich and agreeable, embracing 
the different iron colors, brown, gray, yellowish, and reddish. 
Wh^n the flowing mass reaches the drain at the foot of the 



300 WALDEN 

bank it spreads out flatter into strands, the separate streams 
losing their semi-cylindrical form and gradually becoming more 
flat and broad, running together as they are more moist, till 
they form an almost flat sand, still variously and beautifully 
shaded, but in which you can trace the original forms of vege- 
tation; till at length, in the water itself, they are converted 
into hanks, like those formed ofl" the mouths of rivers, and 
the forms of vegetation are lost in the ripple marks on the 
bottom. 

The whole bank, which is from twenty to forty feet high, 
is sometimes overlaid with a mass of this kind of foliage, or 
sandy rupture, for a quarter of a mile on one or both sides, 
the produce of one spring day. What makes this sand foliage 
remarkable is its springing into existence thus suddenly. When 
I see on the one side the inert bank, — for the sun acts on one 
side first, — and on the other this luxuriant foliage, the creation 
of an hour, I am affected as if in a peculiar sense I stood in 
the laboratory of the Artist who made the world and me — 
had come to where he was still at work, sporting on this bank, 
and with excess of energy strewing his fresh designs about. 
I feel as if I were nearer to the vitals of the globe, for this 
sandy overflow is something such a foliaceous mass as the 
vitals of the animal body. You find thus in the very sands 
an anticipation of the vegetable leaf. No wonder that the 
earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so labors with 
the idea inwardly. The atoms have already learned this law, 
and are pregnant by it. The overhanging leaf sees here its 
prototype. Internally, whether in the globe or animal body, 
it is a moist thick lobe, a word especially applicable to the liver 
and lungs and the leaves of fat (Act^co, labor, lapsus, to flow 
or slip downward, a lapsing; Xopo^, globus, lobe, globe; also 
lap, flap, and many other words), externally a dry thin leaf, 
even as the / and v are a pressed and dried h. The radicals 
of lobe are lb, the soft mass of the h (single lobed, or B, double 



SPRING 301 

lobed), with a liquid I behind it pressing it forward. In globe, 
gib, the guttural g adds to the meaning the capacity of the 
throat. The feathers and wings of birds are still drier and 
thinner leaves. Thus, also, you pass from the lumpish grub 
in the earth to the airy and fluttering butterfly. The very globe 
continually transcends and translates itself, and becomes winged 
in its orbit. Even ice begins with delicate crystal leaves, as 
if it had flowed into molds which the fronds of water plants 
have impressed on the watery mirror. The whole tree itself is 
but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is 
intervening earth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects 
in their axils. 

When the sun withdraws the sand ceases to flow, but in the 
morning the streams will start once more and branch and 
branch again into a myriad of others. You here see perchance 
how blood vessels are formed. If you look closely you observe 
that first there pushes forward from the thawing mass a stream 
of softened sand with a drop-like point, like the ball of the 
finger, feeling its way slowly and blindly downward, until at 
last with more heat and moisture, as the sun gets higher, the 
most fluid portion, in its effort to obey the law to which the 
most inert also yields, separates from the latter and forms 
for itself a meandering channel or artery within that, in which 
is seen a little silvery stream glancing like lightning from 
one stage of pulpy leaves or branches to another, and ever 
and anon swallowed up in the sand. It is wonderful how 
rapidly yet perfectly the sand organizes itself as it flows, using 
the best material its mass affords to form the sharp edges of 
its channel. Such are the sources of rivers. In the silicious 
matter which the water deposits is perhaps the bony system, 
and in the still finer soil and organic matter the fleshy fiber 
or cellular tissue. What is man but a mass of thawing clay? 
The ball of the human finger is but a drop congealed. The 
fingers and toes flow to their extent from the thawing mass 



302 WALDEN 

of the body. Who knows what the human body would expand 
and flow out to under a more genial heaven? Is not the hand 
a spreading palm leaf with its lobes and veins? The ear may 
be regarded, fancifully, as a lichen, umhilicaria, on the side 
of the head, with its lobe or drop. The lip — labium, from 
labor (?) — laps or lapses from the sides of the cavernous 
mouth. The nose is a manifest congealed drop or stalactite. 
The chin is a still larger drop, the confluent dripping of the 
face. The cheeks are a slide from the brows into the valley 
of the face, opposed and diffused by the cheek bones. Each 
rounded lobe of the vegetable leaf, too, is a thick and now 
loitering drop, larger or smaller; the lobes are the fingers of 
the leaf; and as many lobes as it has, in so many directions 
it tends to flow, and more heat or other genial influences would 
have caused it to flow yet farther. 

Thus it seemed that this one hill side illustrated the principle 
of all the operations of Nature. The Maker of this earth but 
patented a leaf. What Champollion will decipher this hiero- 
glyphic for us, that we may turn over a new leaf at last? 
This phenomenon is more exhilarating to me than tl o luxuriance 
and fertility of vineyards. True, it is somewhat excremen- 
titious in its character, and there is no end to the heaps of 
liver, lights, and bowels, as if the globe were turned wrong side 
outward; but this suggests at least that Nature has some bowels, 
and there again is mother of humanity. This is the frost coming- 
out of the ground; this is Siting. It precedes the green and 
flowery spring, as mythology precedes regular poetry. I know- 
of nothing more purgative of winter fumes and indigestionsM 
It convinces me that Earth is still in her swaddling clothes, 
and stretches forth baby fingers on every side. Fresh curls 
spring from the baldest brow. There is nothing inorganic. 
These foliaceous heaps lie along the bank like the slag of a 
furnace, showing that Nature is "in full blast" within. The 
earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon 



SPEING 303 

stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists 
and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of 
a tree, which precede flowers and fruit, — not a fossil earth, 
but a living earth; comj^ared with whose great central life all 
animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic. Its throes will 
heave our exuviae from their graves. You may melt your metals 
and cast them into the most beautiful molds you can"; they will 
never excite me like the forms which this molten earth flows 
out into. And not only it, but the institutions upon it, are 
plastic like clay in the hands of the potter. 

Ere long, not only on these banks, but on every hill and plain 
and in every hollow, the frost comes out of the ground like a 
dormant quadruj^ed from its burrow, and seeks the sea with 
music, or migrates to other climes in clouds. Thaw with his 
gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. 
The one melts, the other but breaks in pieces. 

When the ground was partially bare of snow, and a few 
warm days had dried its surface somewhat, it was pleasant 
to compare the first tender signs of the infant year just peeping 
forth with the stately beauty of the withered vegetation which 
had withstood the winter, — life-everlasting, goldenrods, pin- 
weeds, and graceful wild grasses, more obvious and interesting 
frequently than in summer even, as if their beauty w^as not 
ripe till then; even cotton-grass, cattails, mulleins, Johnswort, 
hardback, meadow-sweet, and other strong stemmed plants, 
those unexhausted granaries which entertain the earliest birds, — 
decent weeds, at least, which widowed Nature wears. I am 
l^articularly attracted b^' the arching and sheaf-like top of 
the wool-gTass; it brings back the summer to our winter mem- 
ories, and is among the forms which art loves to copy, and 
which, in the vegetable kingdom, have the same relation to 
types already in the mind of man that astronomy has. It is 
an antique style older than Greek or Egyptian. Many of 
the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible 



304 WALDEN 

tenderness and fragile delicacy. AYe are accustomed to hear 
this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with 
the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer. 

At the approach of spring tlie red squirrels got under my 
house, two at a time, directly under my feet as I sat reading 
or writing, and kept up the queerest chuckling and chirruping 
and vocal pirouetting and gurgling sounds that ever were 
heard; and when I stamped they only chirruped the louder, 
as if past all fear and respect in their mad pranks, defying 
humanity to stop them. No you don't — chickaree — chickaree. 
They were wholly deaf to my arguments, or failed to perceive 
their force, and fell into a strain of invective that was irre- 
sistible. 

The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with 
younger hope than ever! The faint silvery warblings heard 
over the partially bare and moist fields from the bluebird, the 
song-sparrow, and the red-wing, as if the last flakes of winter 
tinkled as they fell ! What at such a time are histories, chro- 
nologies, traditions, and all written revelations? The brooks 
sing carols and glees to the spring. The marsh-hawk sailing 
low over the meadow is already seeking the first slimy life 
that awakes. The sinking sound of melting snow is heard in 
all dells, and the ice dissolves apace in the ponds. The grass 
flames up on the hill sides like a spring fire, — "et i3rimitus 
orbitur herba imbribus primoribus evocata," — as if the earth 
sent forth an inward heat to greet the returning sun; not 
yellow but green is the color of its flame; — the symbol of 
])erpetual youth, the grass-blade, like a long gi-een ribbon, 
streams from the sod into the summer, checked indeed by the 
frost, but anon pushing on again, lifting its spear of last year's 
hay with the fresh life below. It grows as steadily as the rill 
oozes out of the ground. It is almost identical with that, for 
in the growing days of June, when the rills are dry, the grass- 
blades are their channels, and from year to year the herds 



SPRING 305 

drink at this perennial green stream, and the mower draws 
from it betimes their winter supply. So our human life but dies 
down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity. 

Walden is melting apace. There is a canal two rods wide 
along the northerly and westerly sides, and wider still at the 
east end. A great field of ice has cracked off from the main 
body. I hear a song-sparrow singing from the bushes on the 
shore, — olit, oUt, olit, — chip, chip, chip, che, char, — che tuiss, 
wiss, wiss. He too is helping to crack it. How handsome 
the great sweeping curves in the edge of the ice, answering 
somewhat to those of the shore, but more regular! It is 
unusually hard, owing to the recent severe but transient cold, 
and all watered or waved like a palace floor. But the wind 
slides eastward over its opaque surface in vain, till it reaches 
the living surface beyond. It is glorious to behold this ribbon 
of water sparkling in the sun, the bare face of the pond full 
of glee and youth, as if it spoke the joy of the fishes within 
it, and of the sands on its shore, — a silvery sheen as from 
the scales of a leuciscus, as it were all one active fish. Such 
is the contrast between winter and spring. Walden was dead 
and is alive again. But this sjDring it broke up more steadily, 
as I have said. 

The change from storm and winter to serene and mild 
weather, from dark and sluggish hours to bright and elastic 
ones, is a memorable crisis which all things j^roclaim. It is 
seemingly instantaneous at last. Suddenly an influx of light 
filled my house, though the evening was at hand, and the clouds 
of winter still overhung it, and the eaves were drij^ping with 
sleety rain. I looked out the window, and lo ! where yesterday 
was cold gray ice there lay the transparent pond already calm 
and full of hope as in a summer evening, reflecting a summer 
evening sky in its bosom, though none was visible overhead, 
as if it had intelligence with some remote horizon. I heard 
a robin in the distance, the first I had heard for many a 



306 WALDEN 

thousand years, methouglit, whose note I shall not forget for 
many a thousand more, — the same sweet and powerful song 
as of yore. the evening robin, at the end of a New England 
summer day! If I could ever find the twig he sits upon! 
I mean he; I mean the twig. This at least is not the Turdus 
migratorius. The pitch-pines and shrub-oaks about my house, 
which had so long drooped, suddenly resumed their several 
characters, looked brighter, greener, and more erect and alive, 
as if effectually cleansed and restored by the rain. I knew 
that it would not rain any more. You may tell by looking 
at any twig of the forest, ay, at your very wood-pile, whether 
its winter is past or not. As it grew darker, I was startled 
by the honking of geese flying low over the woods, like weary 
travelers getting in late from southern lakes, and indulging 
at last in unrestrained comjDlaint and mutual consolation. 
Standing at my door, I could hear the rush of their wings; 
when, driving toward my house, they suddenh'' spied my light, 
and with hushed clamor wheeled and settled in the pond. So I 
came in, and shut the door, and passed my first spring night 
in the woods. 

In the morning I watched the geese from the door through 
the mist, sailing in the middle of the pond, fifty rods off, so 
large and tumultuous that Walden appeared like an artificial 
]iond for their amusement. But when I stood on the shore 
they at once rose up with a gi^eat flapping of wings at the 
signal of their commander, and when they had got into rank, 
cii'cled about over my head, twenty-nine of them, and then 
steered straight to Canada, with a regular honk from the leader- 
at intervals, trusting to break their fast in muddier pools. 
A "plump" of ducks rose at the same time and took the route 
to the north in the wake of their noisier cousins. 

For a week I heard the circling groping clangor of some 
solitary goose in the foggy mornings, seeking its companion, 
and still peopling the woods with the sound of a larger life 



SPRING 307 

than they could sustain. In April the pigeons were seen again 
flying express in small flocks, and in due time I heard the 
martins twittering over my clearing, though it had not seemed 
that the township contained so many that it could afford me 
any, and I fancied that they were peculiarly of the ancient 
race that dwelt in hollow trees ere white men came. In almost 
all climes the tortoise and the frog are among the precursors 
and heralds of this season, and birds fly with song and glancing 
plumage, and plants spring and bloom, and winds blow, to 
correct this slight oscillation of the poles and preserve the 
equilibrium of Nature. 

As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming 
in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and 
the realization of the Golden Age. — 

Eurus ad Auroram, Nabathacaque regna recessit, 
Persidaque, et radiis juga subdita matutinis. 

The East-Wmd withdrew to Aurora and the Nabathasan kingdom, 
And the Persian, and the ridges placed under the morning rays. 

****** 

Man was born. Whether that Artificer of things. 
The origin of a better world, made him from the divine seed-; 
Or the earth being recent and lately sundered from the high 
Ether, retained some seeds of cognate heaven. 

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. 
So our jDrospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. 
We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and 
took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass 
which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls 
on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect 
of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter 
in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant spring 
morning all men's sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to 



308 WALDEN 

vice. While such a sun holds out to burn, the vilest sinner 
may return. Through our own recovered innocence we discern 
the innocence of our neighbors. You may have known your 
neighbor yesterday for a thief, a drunkard, or a sensualist, 
and merely pitied or despised him, and despaired of the world ; 
})ut the sun shines bright and warm this first spring morning, 
recreating the world, and you meet him at some serene work, 
and see how his exhausted and debauched veins expand with 
still joy and bless the new day, feel the spring influence with 
the innocence of infancy, and all his faults are forgotten. 
There is not only an atmosphere of good will about him, but 
even a savor of holiness groping for expression, blindly and 
ineffectually perhaps, like a new-born instinct, and for a short 
hour the south hill side echoes to no vulgar jest. You see some 
innocent fair shoots preparing to burst from his gnarled rind and 
try another year's life, tender and fresh as the youngest plant. 
P'ven he has entered into the joy of his Lord. Why the jailer 
does not leave open his prison doors, — why the judge does 
not dismiss his case, — why the preacher does not dismiss his 
congregation! It is because they do not obey the hint which 
God gives them, nor accei>t the pardon which he freely offers 
to all. 

"A return to goodness produced each day in the tranquil 
and beneficent breath of the morning, causes that in respect to 
the love of virtue and the hatred of vice, one approaches a 
little the primitive nature of man, as the sprouts of the forest 
which has been felled. In like manner the evil which one 
does in the interval of a day prevents the germs of virtues 
which began "to spring up again from developing themselves 
and destroys them. 

"After the germs of virtue have thus been prevented many 
times from developing themselves, then the beneficent breath 
of evening does not suffice to preserve them. As soon as the 
breath of evening does not suffice longer to preserve them, 



SPEING 309 

then the nature of man does not differ much from that of the 
brute. Men seeing the nature of this man like that of the 
brute, think that he has never possessed the innate faculty of 
reason. Are those the true and natural sentiments of man?'^ 

The Golden Age was first created, which without any avenger 
Spontaneously without law cherished fidelity and rectitude. 
Punishment and fear were not; nor Avere threatening words read 
On suspended brass; nor did the suppliant crowd fear 
The words of their judge; but were safe without an avenger. 
Not yet the pine felled on its mountains had descended 
To the liquid waves that it might see a foreign world, 
And mortals knew no shores but their own. 

****** 

There was eternal spring, and placid zephyrs with warm 
Blasts soothed the flowers born without seed. 

On the 29th of April, as I was fishing from the bank of 
the river near the Nine-Acre-Corner bridge, standing on the 
quaking grass and willow roots, where the muskrats lurk, I 
heard a singular rattling sound, somewhat like that of the sticks 
which boys play with their fingers, when, looking up, I obsei-ved 
a very slight and graceful hawk, like a night-hawk, alternately 
soaring like a ripple and tumbling a rod or two over and over, 
showing the underside of its wings, which gleamed like a satin 
ribbon in the sun, or like the pearly inside of a shell. This 
sight reminded me of falconry and what nobleness and poetry 
are associated with that sport. The Merlin it seemed to me 
it might be called: but I care not for its name. It was the 
most ethereal flight I had ever witnessed. It did not simply 
flutter like a butterfly, nor soar like the larger hawks, but it 
sported with proud reliance in the fields of air; mounting 
again and again with its strange chuckle, it repeated its free 
and beautiful fall, turning over and over like a kite, and then 
recovering from its lofty tumbling, as if it had never set its 
foot on terra firma. It appeared to have no companion in the 



310 WALDEN 

universe, siDorting there alone, — and to need none but the 
morning and the ether with which it played. It was not lonely, 
but made all the earth lonely beneath it. Where was the 
parent whieh hatched it, its kindred, and its father in the 
heavens? The tenant of the air, it seemed related to the earth 
but by an egg hatched sometime in the crevice of a crag; — or 
was its native i>est made in the angle of a cloud, woven of the 
rainbow's trimmings and the sunset sky, and lined with some 
soft midsummer haze caught up from earth? Its eyry now 
some cliffy cloud. 

Besides this I got a rare mess of golden and silver and 
bright cupreous fishes, which looked like a string of jewels. 
Ah! I have penetrated to those meadows on the morning of 
many a first spring day, jumping from hummock to hummock, 
from willow root to willow root, w^hen the wild river valley 
and the woods were bathed in so pure and bright a light as 
would have waked the dead, if they had been slumbering in 
their graves, as some suppose. There needs no stronger proof 
of immortality. All things must live in such a light. Death, 
w^iere was thy sting? Grave, where was thy victory, then? 

Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unex- 
plored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the 
tonic of wildness, — to wade sometimes in marshes where the 
bittern and the meado^v-hen lurk, and hear the booming of 
the snipe ; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wulder 
and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls 
with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that wo 
are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that 
all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and cea 
be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because 
unfathomable. We can never have enough of Nature. W^e 
must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and 
Titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness 
with its living and its decaying trees, the thundercloud, and 



SPRING 311 

the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We 
need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life 
pasturing- freely where we never wander. We are cheered 
when we observe the vulture feeding on the carrion which 
disgusts and disheartens us, and deriving health and strength 
from the repast. There was a dead horse in the hollow by the 
path to my house, which compelled me sometimes to go out 
of my way, especially in the night when the air Avas heavy, 
but the assurance it gave me of the strong appetite and 
inviolable health of Nature was my compensation for this. 
I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can 
be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another; 
that tender organizations can be so serenely squashed out of 
existence like pulp, — tadpoles which herons gobble up, and 
tortoises and toads run over in the road; and that sometimes 
it has rained flesh and blood ! With the liability to accident, 
we must see how little account is to be made of it. The impres- 
sion made on a wise man is that of universal innocence. Poison 
is not poisonous after all, nor are any wounds fatal. Com- 
passion is a very untenable ground. It must be .expeditious. 
Its pleadings will not bear to be stereotyped. 

Early in May, the oaks, hickories, maples, and other trees, 
just putting out amidst the pine woods around the pond, 
imparted a brightness like sunshine to the landscape, especially 
in cloudy days, as if the sun were breaking through mists and 
shining faintly on the hill sides here and there. On the third 
or fourth of May I saw a loon in the pond, and during the 
first week of the month I heard the whippoorwill, the brown 
thrasher, the veery, the wood-pewee, chewink, and other birds. 
I had heard the wood-thrush long before. The j^hoebe had 
already come once more and looked in at my door and window, 
to see if my house was cavern-like enough for her, sustaining 
herself on humming wings with clinched talons, as if she held 
by the air, while she surveyed the premises. The sulphur- 



312 



WALDEN 



like pollen of the pitch-pine soon covered the pond and the 
stones and rotten wood along the shore, so that you could 
have collected a barrelful. This is the "sulphur showers" we 
hear of. Even in Calidasa's drama of Sacontala, we read of 
"rills dyed yellow with the golden dust of the lotus." And 
so the seasons went rolling on into summer, as one rambles 
into higher and higher grass. 

Thus was my first year's life in the woods completed; and 
the second year was similar to it. I finally left Waldeii 
September 6th, 1847. 



I 



XVIII 
CONCLUSION 



To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air 
and scenery. Thank Heaven, here is not all the world. The 
buckeye does not groAv in New England, and the mocking-bird 
is rarely heard here. The wild goose is more of a cosmopolite 
than we; he breaks his fast in Canada, takes a luncheon in 
the Ohio, and plumes himself for the night in a southern bayou. 
Even the bison to some extent keeps pace with the seasons, 
cropping the pastures of the Colorado only till a greener and 
sweeter grass aAvaits him by the Yellowstone. Yet we think 
that if rail-fences are pulled down, and stone-walls piled up 
on our farms, bounds are henceforth set to our lives and our 
fates decided. If you are chosen town clerk, forsooth, you 
cannot go to Terra del Fuego this summer: but you may go 
to the land of infernal fire nevertheless. The universe is wider 
than our views of it. 

Yet we should oftener look over the tafferel of our craft, 
like curious passengers, and not make the voyage like stupid 
sailors picking oakum. The other side of the globe is but the 
home of our correspondent. Our voyage is only great circle- 
sailing, and the doctors prescribe for diseases of the skin merely. 
One hastens to Southern Africa to chase the giraffe; but surely 
that is not the game he would be after. How long, pray, would 
a man hunt giraffes if he could? Snipes and woodcocks also 
may afford rare sport; but I trust it would be nobler game to 
shoot one's self. — 

313 



314 WALDEN 

Direct your eye right inward, and you '11 find 
A thousand regions in your mind 
Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be 
Expert in home-cosmography. 

What does Africa, — what does the West stand for? Is not 
our own interior white on the chart ? black though it may prove, 
like the coast, when discovered. Is it the source of the Nile, 
or the Niger, or the Mississippi, or a Northwest Passage around 
this continent, that we would find? Are these the problems 
which most concern mankind? Is Franklin the only man who 
is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him? Does 
Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is? Be rather the Mungo 
Park, the Lewis and Clark and Frobisher, of your own streams 
and oceans ; explore your own higher latitudes, — with shiploads 
of jDreserved meats to support you, if thej^ be necessary; and 
pile the empty cans sky-high for a sign. Were preserved 
meats invented to preserve meat merely? Nay, be a Columbus 
to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new 
channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord 
of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but 
a petty state, a hummock left by the ice. Yet some can be 
patriotic who have no seZ/-respect, and sacrifice the greater 
to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but 
have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their 
clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads. What was the 
meaning of that South-Sea ExjDloring Expedition, with all 
its parade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the 
fact that there are continents and seas in the moral world, to 
which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by 
him, but that it is easier to sail many thousand miles through 
cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five 
hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the 
private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being, 
alone. — 



CONCLUSION 315 

Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos. 
Plus habet hie vitae, plus habet ille viae. 

Let them wander and scrutinize the outlandish Australians. 
I have more of God, they more of the road. 

It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the 
eats in Zanzibar. Yet do this even till you can do better, and 
you may perhaps find some "Symmes' Hole" by which to get 
at the inside at last. England and France, Spain and Portugal, 
Gold Coast and Slave Coast, all front on this private sea; but 
no bark from them has ventured out of sight of land, though it 
is without doubt the direct way to India. If you would learn 
to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations, 
if you would travel farther than all travelers, be naturalized 
in all climes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against 
a stone, even obey the precept of the old philosopher, and 
Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve. 
Only the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that 
run away and enlist. Start now on that farthest western way, 
which does not pause at the Mississippi or the Pacific, nor 
conduct toward a worn-out China or Japan, but leads on direct 
a tangent to this sphere, summer and winter, day and night, 
sun down, moon down, and at last earth down too. 

It is said that Mirabeau took to highway robbery "to ascer- 
tain what degree of resolution was necessary in order to place 
one's self in formal opposition to the most sacred' laws of 
society." He declared that "a soldier who fights in the ranks 
does not require half so much courage as a foot-pad," — "that 
honor and religion have never stood in the way of a well- 
considered and a firm resolve." This was manly, as the world 
goes; and yet it was idle, if not desperate. A saner man 
Avould have found himself often enough "in formal opposition" 
to what are deemed "the most sacred laws of society," through 
obedience to yet more sacred laws, and so have tested his 



316 WALDEN ^ 

resolution without going out of his way. It is not for a man 
to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain 
himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience 
to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposi- 
tion to a just government, if he should chance to meet with| 
such. I 

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. I 
Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, ' 
and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remark- ■ 
able how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, i 
and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there \ 
a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond- | 
side ; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still ' 
quite distinct. It is true, I fear that others may have fallen 
into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the 
earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with 
the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, 
must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of 
tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin 
passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of 
the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the 
mountains. I do not wish to go below now. 

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one 
advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and 
endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet 
with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put 
some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, 
universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish them- 
selves around and within him ; or the old laws be expanded, and 
interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will 
live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion 
as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear 
less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty 
poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in 



CONCLUSION 317 

the air, your work need not be lost ; that is where they should 
be. Now put the foundations under them. 

It is a ridiculous demand which England and America make, 
that you shall speak so that they can understand you.' Neither 
men nor toadstools gTow so. As if that were important, and 
there were not enough to understand you without them. As if 
Nature could support but one order of understandings, could 
not sustain birds as well as quadrupeds, flying as well as 
creeping things, and hush and who, which Bright can under- 
stand, were the best English. As if there were safety in 
stupidity alone. I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be 
extra-vagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the 
narrow limits of my daily experience, so as to be adequate 
to the truth of which I have been convinced. Extravagance! 
it depends on how you are yarded. The migrating buffalo 
which seeks new pastures in another latitude, is not extravagant 
like the cow which kicks over the pail, leaps the cowyard fence, 
and runs after her calf, in milking-time. I desire to speak 
somewhere without bounds; like a man in a waking moment, 
to men in their waking moments; for I am convinced that I 
cannot exaggerate enough even to lay the foundation of a true 
expression. Who that has heard a strain of music feared then 
lest he should speak extravagantly any more forever? In 
view of the future or possible, we should live quite laxly and 
I undefined in front, our outlines dim and misty on that side; 
I as our shadows reveal an insensible perspiration toward the 
• sun. The volatile truth of our words should continually betray 
ithe inadequacy of the residual statement. Their truth is 
i instantly translated; its literal monument alone remains. The 
•words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet 
I they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior 
' natures. 

Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and 
i praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the 



318 WALDEN 

sense of men asleep, -wbicli the}' express by snoring. Some- 
times we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half- 
witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third 
part of their wit. Some would find fault with the morning- 
red, if they ever got up early enough. "They pretend," as I 
hear, "that the verses of Kabir have four different senses: 
illusion, spirit, intellect, and the exoteric doctrine of the 
Yedas" ; but in this part of the world it is considered a ground 
for complaint if a man's writings admit of more than one 
interpretation. While England endeavors to cure the potato- 
rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails 
so much more widely and fatally? 

I do not suppose that I have attained to obscurity, but I 
should be proud if no more fatal fault were found with my 
pages on this score than was found with the Walden ice. 
Southern customers objected to its blue color, which is the 
evidence of its purity, as if it were muddy, and preferred the 
Cambridge ice, which is white, but tastes of weeds. The purity 
men love is like the mists which envelop the earth, and not 
like the azure ether beyond. 

Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns 
generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, 
or even the Elizabethan men. But what is that to the purpose? 
A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and 
hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and 
not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind 
his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made. 

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and 
in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace 
with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different 
drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however 
measured or far away. It is not important that he should 
mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Shall he turn his 
spring into summer? If the condition of things which we 



CONCLUSION 319 

were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can 
substitute? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality. 
Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue glass over ourselves, 
though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still at the true 
ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were not? 

There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed 
to strive after perfection. One day it came into his mind to 
make a staff. Having considered that in an imperfect work 
time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not 
enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, 
though I should do nothing else in my life. He proceeded 
instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it should 
not be made of unsuitable material; and as he searched for 
and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted 
him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew 
not older by a moment. His singleness of purpose and reso- 
lution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowl- 
edge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with 
Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance 
because he could not overcome him. Before he had found a 
stock in all respects suitable, the city of Kouroo was a hoary 
ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to j^eel the stick. Before 
he had given it the proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars 
was at an end, and with the point of the stick he wrote the 
name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed 
his work. By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff 
Kalpa was no longer the pole-star; and ere he had put on 
the ferrule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma 
had awoke and slumbered many times. But why do I stay 
to mention these things ? When the finishing stroke was put 
to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the 
astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. 
He had made a new system in making a staff, a world with 
full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and 



320 WALDEN 

dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had 
taken their places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings 
still fresh at his feet, that, for him and his work, the former 
lapse of time had been an illusion, and that no more time had 
elapsed than is required for a single scintillation from the 
brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal i 
brain. The material was pure, and his art was pure; how ! 
could the result be other than wonderful? 

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well , 
at last as the truth. This alone wears well. For the most part, j 
we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an 
infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves | 
into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is 
'doubly difficult to get out. In sane moments we regard only i 
the facts, the case that is. Say what you have to say, not what j 
you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. Tom 
Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he I 
had anything to say. "Tell the tailors," said he, "to remember | 
to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch." | 
His companion's prayer is forgotten. | 

However mean your life is, meet it and live it ; do not shun I 
it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It | 
looks poorest when you are richest. The faultfinder will find | 
faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You I 
may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, i 
even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the i 
windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's 
abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. 
I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, 
and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor 
seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. 
Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without mis- 
giving. Most think that they are above being supported by the 
town ; but it oftener happens that they are not above support- 



CONCLUSION 321 

ing themselves by dishonest means, which should be more dis- 
reputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do 
not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or 
friends. Turn the old ; return to them. Things do not change ; 
we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God 
will see that you do not want society. If I were confined to a 
corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would 
be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me. The 
johilosopher said: "From an army of three divisions one can 
take away its general, and put it in disorder : from the man the 
most abject and vulgar one cannot take away his thought." Do 
not seek so anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to 
many influences to be jilayed on ; it is all dissipation. Humil- 
ity like darkness reveals the heavenly lights. The shadows of 
poverty and meanness gather around us, "and lo ! creation 
widens to our view." We are often reminded that if there were 
bestowed on us the wealth of Croesus, our aims must still be the 
same, and our means essentially the same. Moreover, if you are 
restricted in your range by poverty, if you cannot buy books 
and newspapers, for instance, you are but confined to the most 
significant and vital experiences; you are compelled to deal 
with the material which yields the most sugar and the most 
starch. It is life near the bone where it is sweetest. You are 
defended from being a trifler. .No man loses ever on a lower 
level by magnanimity on a higher. Superfluous wealth can buy 
superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary 
of the soul. 

I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition 
was poured a little alloy of bell metal. Often, in the repose of 
my midday, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum 
from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries. My 
neighbors tell me of their adventures with famous gentlemen 
and ladies, what notabilities they met at the dinner-table ; but I 
am no more interested in such things than in the contents of the 



322 WALDEN 

Daily Times. The interest and the conversation are about cos- 
tume and manners chiefly; but a goose is a goose still, dress it 
as you will. They tell me of California and Texas, of England 

and the Indies, of the Hon, Mr. of Georgia or of Massa 

chusetts, all transient and fleeting phenomena, till I am read) 
to leap from their court-yard like the Mameluke bey. I delight 
to come to my bearings,— not walk in procession with pomp and 
parade, in a conspicuous place, but to walk even with the 
Builder of the universe, if I may, — not to live in this restless, 
nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or sit 
thoughtfully while it goes by. What are men celebrating? 
They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect 
a speech from somebody. God is only the president of the day, 
and Webster is His orator. I love to weigh, to settle, to gravi- 
tate toward that which most stronglj^ and rightfully attracts 
me ; — not hang by the beam of the scale and try to weigh less, — 
not suppose a case, but take the case that is ; to travel the only 
path I can, and that on which no power can resist me. . It affords 
me no satisfaction to commence to spring an arch before I have 
got a solid foundation. Let us not play at kittlybenders. There 
is a solid bottom everywhere. We read that the traveler asked 
the boy if the swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy 
replied that it had. But presently the traveler's horse sank in 
up to the girths, and he observed to the boy, "I thought you 
said that this bog had a hard bottom." "So it has," answered 
the latter, "but you have not got half way to it yet." So it is 
with the bogs and quicksands of society; but he is an old boy 
that knows it. Only what is thought, said, or done at a certain 
rare coincidence is good. I would not be one of those who will 
foolishly drive a nail into mere lath and plastering; such a deed 
would keep me awake nights. Give me a hammer, and let me 
feel for the furring. Do not depend on the putty. Drive a nail 
home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the 
night and think of your work with satisfaction, — a work at 



CONCLUSION 323 

which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse. So will 
help you God, and so only. Every nail driven should be as 
another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on 
the work. 

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I 
sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and 
obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I 
went away hungry from the inhospitable board. The hospital- 
ity was as cold as the ices. I thought that there was no need 
of ice to freeze them. They talked to me of the age of the wine 
and the fame of the vintage ; but I thought of an older, a newer, 
and purer wine, of a more glorious vintage, which they had not 
got, and could not buy. The style, the house and grounds and 
"entertainment," pass for nothing with me. I called on the 
king, but he made me wait in his hall, and conducted like a 
man incapacitated for hospitality. There was a man in my 
neighborhood who lived in a hollow tree. His manners were 
truly regal. I should have done better had I called on him. 

How long shall we sit in our porticos practicing idle and 
musty virtues, which any work would make impertinent? As if 
one were to begin the day with long-suffering, and hire a man 
to hoe his potatoes; and in the afternoon go forth to practice 
Christian meekness and charity with goodness aforethought! 
Consider the China pride and stagnant self-complacency of 
mankind. This generation reclines a little to congratulate itself 
on being the last of an illustrious line ; and in Boston and Lon- 
don and Paris and Rome, thinking of its long descent, it speaks 
of its progress in art and science and literature with satisfac- 
tion. There are the Records of the Philosophical Societies, and 
the public Eulogies of Great Men! It is the good Adam eon-" 
templating his own virtue. "Yes, we have done great deeds, 
and sung divine songs, which shall never die," — that is, as long 
as we can remember them. The learned societies and great men 
of Assyria, — where are they ? What youthful philosophers and 



324 WALDEN 

experimentalists we are I There is not one of my readers who 
has yet lived a whole human life. These may be but the spring 
months in the life of the race. If we have had the seven-years* 
itch, we have not seen the seventeen-year locust yet in Concord. 
We are acquainted with a mere pellicle of the globe on which 
we live. Most have not delved six feet beneath the surface, nor 
leaped as many above it. We know not where we are. Besides, 
we are sound asleep nearly half our time. Yet we esteem our- 
selves wise, and have an established order on the surface. Truly, 
we are deep thinkers, we are ambitious spirits ! As I stand over 
the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, 
and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself 
why it will cherish those humble thoughts and hide its head 
from me who might, perhaps, be its benefactor and impart to 
its race some cheering information, I am reminded of the 
greater Benefactor and Intelligence that stands over me, the 
human insect. 

There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and 
yet we tolerate incredible dullness. I need only suggest what 
kind of sermons are still listened to in the most enlightened 
countries. There are such words as joy and sorrow, but they are 
only the burden of a psalm, sung with a nasal twang, while we 
believe in the ordinary and mean. We think that we can change 
our clothes only. It is said that the British Empire is very 
large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate 
power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind 
every man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he 
should ever harbor it in his mind. Who knows what sort of 
seventeen-year locust will next come out of the ground? The 
government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of 
Britain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine. 

The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this 
year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched 
uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown 



\ 



il 



CONCLUSION 325 

out all our muskrats. It was not always dry land where we 
dwell. I see far inland the banks which the stream anciently 
washed, before science began to record its freshets. Every one 
has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New England, 
of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf 
of an old table of apple-tree wood, which had stood in a farmer's 
kitchen for sixty years, first in Connecticut and afterward in 
Massachusetts, — from an egg deposited in the living tree many 
years earlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers 
beyond it; which was heard gnawing out for several weeks, 
hatched perchance by the heat of an urn. Who does not feel 
his faith in a resui-rection and immortality strengthened by 
hearing of this? Who knows what beautiful and winged life, 
whose egg has been buried for ages under man concentric layers 
of woodenness in the dead dry life of society, deposited at the 
first in the alburnum of the green and Kving tree, which has 
been gradually converted into the semblance of its well-seasoned 
tomb, — heard perchance gnawing out now for years by the 
astonished family of man, as they sat round the festive board, — 
may unexpectedly come forth from amidst society's most trivial 
and handselled furniture, to enjoy its perfect summer life at 
last! 

I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this ; but 
such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time 
can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is 
darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. 
There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. 



NOTES 

Page 27. Two years and three months. Beginning July 4, 1845. Thoreau 
did not publish Walden, however, until 1854. 

28. Traveled a good deal in Concord. Thoreau believed in Emerson's 
maxim: "Traveling is the fool's paradise." Alcott said: "Thoreau 
thought he lived in the center of the Universe and would annex the rest 
of the planet to Concord." 

28. Brahmins. The religious i:pper caste of the Hindoos. The reference 
here is to the various tortures which they underwent in order to gain 
favor with their gods. 

28. Twelve labors of Hercules. A succession of desperate undertakings 
enjoined by Eurystheus. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths (revised edition), 
pp. 216-221. 

29. Augean Stables. The cleansing of these was one of the. twelve 
labors of Hercules. 

29. Deucalion and Pyrrha. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, p. 16. 

29. Raleigh, Sir Walter (1552? -1618). The passage is from Ovid. Thoreau 
enjoyed the vigor of Raleigh's style. 

'31. Wilberforce, William (1759-1833). An English anti-slavery leader, 

33. Evelyn, John (1620-1706). Famous principally as a diarist. He was 
also the author of a learned work on trees entitled Sylva. 

33. Hippocrates. Considered "the father of medicine" by the ancient 
world. 

34. Confucius (550-478 b. c). A celebrated Chinese philosopher. The 
founder of the chief Chinese religion. 

36. Liebig, Baron Justus von (1803-1873). A famous German chemist. 

37. Elysian. In Greek mythology, Elysium was the abode of the blessed 
after death. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, pp. 51, 52. 

39. I long ago lost a hound, etc. This is perhaps Thoreau's best state- 
ment of his transcendental search for the unfindable, for the ideal. 

42. To transact some private business. Thoreau desired to study books 
and nature, and to learn to write. 

42. Celestial Empire. China; used here figuratively for the spiritual 
world. The reference is to the extensive trade which was being carried on 
between China and the United States through the port at Salem, Massa- 
chusetts. 

43. La Perouse. A famous French navigator who made discoveries in 
the Far East. He was supposedly lost at sea in 1788. 

327 



328 WALDEN 

43. Hanno. A Carthaginian navigator of the fifth century B. c. who 
explored the west coast of Africa. 

43. Neva. A river at whose mouth Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg) 
is situated. 

44. If they were divested of their clothes. Thoreau in this passage is 
influenced by Carlyle. Read "The World out of Clqthes," Chapter 8, 
Book I of Sartor Resartus. 

44. Madam Pfeiffer (1797-1858). A celebrated Viennese traveler who 
journeyed twice around the world. She published in 1850, A Woman's 
Journey Round the World. 

46. New wine in old bottles. The allusion is to Matthew, ix, 17. 

46. The old philosopher. Bias, who was one of the Seven Wise Men of 
Greece. 

46. Fates. According to Greek mythology the three Fates, Clotho, 
Lachesis, and Atropos, spun, measured, and cut the thread of human 
destiny, Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, p. 38. 

47. Egyptian wheat. Reference to stories — now discredited — of the 
germination of wheat which had lain thousands of years in the tombs of 
Egypt. 

48. Harlequin. The conventional clown of Italian comedies and puppet 
shows. 

48. Samuel Laing (1/80-1868). A Scottish traveler; publisher of several 
works on Xorway and Sweden. 

49. Domestic. See origin of the word. From the Latin, domus, house. 

51. Goodkin, Daniel (1612-1678). The quotation is from Historical Collec- 
tions of the Indians of Massachusetts. 

52. Rumford fireplace. An improved fireplace, the principles of which 
were first discovered by Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (1753-1814). 

53. The fathers have eaten sour grapes. This and the two following 
verses are taken from Esekicl, xviii, 2-4. 

54. Suent. A dialectal word; here used in the sense of working smoothly. 
54. Chapman, George. Elizabethan dramatist. The quotation is from 

his tragedy, Caesar and Pompey, Act V, scene ii. 

54. Momus. The Greek god of censure and faultfinding. 

57. Aurora. The goddess of dawn. 

57. Memnon. The son of Aurora. The "column of Memnon," which was 
a colossal statue at Thebes, Egypt, was supposed to give forth music 
when the rays of the rising sun fell upon it. 

57. Sardanapalus (668-626 B. c). A king of Assyria whose reign was 
celebrated for its material prosperity. Cf. Byron's Sardanapalus. 

57. Jonathan. "Brother Jonathan," the American people as a whole. 

57. Malaria. Italian, mal' aria, bad air. 

58. Agri-culture. Latin, agri cultura, the tilling of a field. 

59. Old Johnson. Edward Johnson (1599-1672). The author of a History 
of New England entitled The Wonder-Working Providence of Zion's 
Saviour in New England. 



NOTEJS 329 

60. I borrowed an axe. Of his friend, A. Bronson Alcptt, one of the 
leaders of the Brook Farm experiment and the father of Louisa May 
Alcott. 

62. Singing to myself. Thoreau here quotes from his own verses. 

64. The removal of the gods of Troy. Cf. ^neidj Book ii. 

64. The character of his raisers. Among these "raisers" were Ralph 
Waldo Emerson, George William Curtis, William Ellery Channing, and 
A. Bronson Alcott. Cf. Homes of American Authors. 

66. The ninth part of a man. The allusion is to the familiar saying, "It 
takes nine tailors to make a man." 

66. Trinity Church. The reference is to the church which stands oppo- 
site the head of Wall Street, New York City. 

68. Squatter's right. "Thoreau delighted to call himself a 'squatter' 
on Emerson's land, for this nomadic term well suited his mood." — Marble. 

69. Cambridge College. Harvard College. Thoreau lived in Hollis Hall 
during his undergraduate days, where he had "many and noisy neighbors, 
and a residence in the fourth story." Cf. F. B. Sanborn's Henry D. 
Thoreau, p. 55. 

71. Rogers. Joseph Rogers and Sons, cutlers of Shefifield, England. 

71. Adam Smith (1723-1790), Ricardo, David (1772-1823), and Say, Jean 
Baptiste (1767-1823) were leading economists. 

72. Flying Childers. A famous English race horse of the eighteenth 
century that was never beaten. 

72. Fitchburg. A town thirty miles west from Concord; at the time, 
the terminus of the Fitchburg Railroad. 

74. Arthur Young (1741-1820). An Englishman, the author of many 
books dealing with scientific agriculture. 

76. Bhagvat-Geeta. A sacred book of the Hindoos, supposed to date 
from the first or second century of our era. 

76. Thebes. This reference is to the Egyptian Thebes. Cf. Iliad, Book 
ix, line 383, "the hundred gated." 

76. Vitruvius. Marcus Vitruvius Pollia, a Roman architect of the age 
of Augustus. 

77. Thirty centuries. Perhaps an inexact reference to the words of 
Napoleon to his soldiers when in Egypt: "From the summit of those 
monuments forty centuries look down upon you." 

77. As many trades as fingers. In 1847, Thoreau wrote to the secretary 
of his Harvard class: "I am a Schoolmaster, a private Tutor, a Surveyor, 
a Gardener, a Farmer, a Painter (I mean House Painter), a Carpenter, a 
Mason, a Day-laborer, a Pencil-maker, a Glass-paper-maker, a Writer, 
and sometimes a Poetaster." 

78. Their bills have not yet been received. The washing and mending 
were done at his home. Channing writes: "Some have fancied because 
he moved to Walden he left his family. He bivouacked there, and really 
lived at home, where he went every day." 

81. Cato. The quotation is from De Agri Cultura, chap. 74. 



330 WALDEN 

82. Forefathers sang. The quotation is from "New England Annoy- 
ances," one of the earliest pieces of verse produced in America, 

82. Indicms. Burroughs writes: "Doubtless the wildest man New Eng- 
land has turned out since the red aborigines vacated her territory was 
Henry Thoreau, — a man in whom the Indian re-appeared on the plane of 
taste and morals. . . . His whole life was a search for the wild, not 
only in nature, but in literature, in life, in morals. ... He, for the 
most part, despised the white man; but his enthusiasm kindled at the 
mention of the Indian; he coveted his knowledge, his arts, his wood- 
craft. He credited him with a more 'practical and vital science' than 
was contained in the books," Read also Arthur Rickett on this point in 
The Vagabond in Literature. 

83. Experiments. Thoreau lived in an age of experimentation. In 
1840 Emerson wrote to Carlyle: "We are all a little wild with numberless 
projects of social reform; not a reading-man but has a draft of a new 
community in his waistcoat pocket." 

85. The evil that men do. The quotation is from Julius Caesar, III, ii, 80. 

85. Bartram, William (1739-1823). An early American botanist. The 
Mucclasse Indians are described in Part III, chap. 8, of his Travels through 
North and South Carolina, Georgia, etc. 

86. Mexicans. Cf. Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, Book I, chap. iv. 

87. Keep the flocks of Admetus. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, pp. 104, 105. 

88. Each one ... his own way. In another place, Thoreau says: 
"But I say that I have no scheme about it, — no designs on man at all." 

90. Robin Goodfellow. "Puck." Cf. Shakspere's Midsummer-Night's 
Dream. II, i, 32-57. 

91. Phaeton. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, pp. 94-98. 

91. Howard, John. A famous prison reformer of the latter part of the 
eighteenth century. He published in 1777 his work, State of the Prisons. 

91. Jesuits. "The Society of Jesus." The Jesuits were zealous mission- 
aries among the Indians. 

93. Penn, William (1644-1718) and Fry, Elizabeth (1780-1845), were promi- 
nent Quakers. 

95. Our manners have been corrupted. The allusion is to 1 Corinthians, 
XV, 33. 

95. Cursing of God and enduring him forever. A sarcastic reference to 
the article in the Westminster Catechism, which, in answer to the ques- 
tion, "What is the chief end of man?" reads, "To glorify God and to 
enjoy him forever." 

95. Sheik Sadi of Shiraz (1190-1291). A famous Persian poet. 

96. Thomas Carew (1598-1639). An English poet; the earliest of the 
Cavalier singers. 

98. I bought the Hollowell place. It is reported that Thoreau was some- 
what disappointed when the owner changed his mind about the bargain. 
Thoreau had intended at that time to use this farm for a place of retreat. 
Later, when this failed, he chose Walden Pond, 



II 



NOTES 331 

98. I am monarch of all I survey. Quoted from Cowper's Verses sup- 
posed to be written by Alexander Selkirk. 

99. Atlas. According to Greek mythology, Atlas held the pillars of the 
sky on his shoulders. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, p. 57. 

99. Old Cato. Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 b. c). Author of De Re 
Riistica (Concerning Agriculture). 

99. "Cultivator." The Boston Cultivator, an agricultural journal. 

100. Experiment. Thoreau regards his life at Walden an experimcn 
He had no intention of becoming permanently a hermit. See note, 83. 

100. Ode to dejection. An allusion to Coleridge's Ode to Dejection. 
Thoreau here explains why he consciously exaggerates his experience. 

101. A boat. The boat which Thoreau and his brother John built and 
which they used during their journey which is recorded in A Week on 
the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. The boat was later owned by Haw- 
thorne. 

101. The Harivansa. A Sanskrit poem. 

103. Damodara. A name for Krishna, a divine hero of Hindoo mythol- 
ogy. 

103. Pleiades or the Hyades. These are constellations. 

103. Aldebaran or Altair. These are fixed stars of the first magni- 
tude. 

104. Aurora. The Greek Goddess of Dawn. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths. 
pp. 39, 95. 

105. The Vedas. The early religious books of India. 
105. Memnon. See note, p. 57. 

105. I went to the woods, etc. "The writer in this surely ranges himself 
with the prophets, — with Ruskin and Emerson and Carlyle; in the very 
essence of the matter with Goethe, the clearest sighted of all modern 
men." — Payne. 

106. Spartan-like. The Spartans trained themselves in hardy simplicity 
for the service of the State. 

106. Next excursion. The next or future life. 

106. Glorify God and enjoy him forever. See note, p. 95. 

106. Let your affairs be as two or three. The entire passage is broadly 
parallel to The Sermon on the Mount. 

108. Setting the bell. Ringing a bell so hard that it balances in an in- 
verted position. 

108. Wachito River. Rises in Arkansas and empties into the Red River 
in Louisiana. 

108. Rudiment of an eye. The fishes in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky 
are blind. 

111. Mill-dam. "The center of Concord village, where the postoffice 
and shops are — so called from an old mill-dam where now is a street." — 
F. B. Sanborn. 

112. Tied to the mast like Ulysses. In passing the Sirens, Ulysses had 



332 WALDEN 

the ears of the sailors stopped with wax, and had himself tied to the 
mast. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, pp. 328, 329. 

112. Point d* appui. French, meaning "basis, support." 

112. Nilometer. An instrument for gauging the height of the water in 
the Nile River. Thoreau here makes a pun on the word as though it 
were derived from the Latin nil, and in this meaning, sets the word in 
contrast with Rezdometer, a word of his own coining. 

lis. Noblest recorded thoughts of man. Matthew^ Arnold called the 
classics "the best that has been thought and said in the world." 

115. Delphi and Dodona. The oracle of Apollo was at Delphi; the oracle 
of Zeus, at Dodona. 

117. Alexander. Alexander the Great. There is a tradition that he 
slept nightly with his sword and with a copy of the Iliad under his pillow. 

118. Vedas. See note, p. 105. 

118. Zendavestas. The bible of Zoroastrianism, the ancient national 
religion of Persia. 

119. Referred to a town. Reading and North Reading are towns in 
Massachusetts, not far from Concord. 

120. A woodchopper. Alek Therien. He is described at length in chap- 
ter VI. 

121. Tit-men. Small men, pygmies. 

122. Zoroaster. The founder of Zoroastrianism. See note above. 

123. Abelard (1079-1142). A learned French scholar. 

123. Utopian. Ideal but impracticable. An adjective from Utopia, a 
book by Sir Thomas More. 

123. "Olive Branches." The Olive Branch was a Methodist weekly 
magazine which was published in Boston. 

123. Redding and Co. Of Boston. Publishers of popular fiction. 

126. Puri Indians. A Brazilian tribe. See previous note on Indians, 
I.. 82. 

128. Partridge. The ruffed grouse, commonly called a partridge in 
America. 

128. In truth, our village has become a butt. The quotation is from 
William Ellery Channing's poem entitled IValden Spring. 

131. Atropos. The Fate whose business it was to cut the thread of 
man's life. 

132. Buena Vista. A battle fought February 22 and 23, 1847, in which 
the Americans had a great victory over the Mexicans. 

132. Daisies and the nests of fieldmice. The reference is to Robert 
IJurns's poems, To a Mountain Daisy and To a Mouse. 

132. Long Wharf. In Boston. 

133. Thomaston lime. Lime from Thomaston, Maine. 

134. To be the mast. Quoted from Milton's Paradise Lost, Bk. i, 293, 294. 

134. Cattle of a thousand hills. The allusion is to Psalms, 1, 10. 

135. Mountains do indeed skip like rams. The allusion is to Psalms, 
cxiv, 4. 



NOTES 333 



135. Peterboro* Hills. These are visible on the northwestern horizon, 
from Concord. 

137. Ben Jonsonism. Thoreau perhaps had in mind the witches' scene 
in Ben Jonson's Masque of Queens. 

138. Illustrates. Illuminates. 

138. Stygian. Of the lower world. From the River Styx. 

139. Aldermanic. The conventional alderman is noticeably corpulent. 
139. DoMm to his mark. The reference is to the peg- tankard. A series 

of marks was placed on the inside of the cup in order to gauge the 
draughts, as it was passed from hand to hand. 
142. Pouts. Hornpouts, bullheads. 

142. "The world to darkness and to me." Quoted from Gray's Elegy in 
A Country Churchyard. 

143. /Eolian. Wind music. From .^Eolus, god of the winds. Cf. Gayley's 
Classic Myths, p. 39. 

144. Mourning untimely consumes the sad. Quoted from Macpherson's 
alleged translation of Ossian's Gaelic poem, Croma. 

145. Beacon Hill. In Boston. The State House now occupies the sum- 
mit of this hill. 

145. The Five Points. In New York City. Named because of the 
peculiar intersection of the streets. 

145. Brighton. Now a part of Boston. In Thoreau's day it was the 
center of the local cattle market. Concord was situated on the direct 
trade route between New Hampshire and Boston. 

146. Indra. In Hindoo Mythology, Indra was the chief of the gods of 
the air. 

148. Blue devils. Apparitions supposed to be seen by persons suffering 
with delirium tremens; hence, very low spirits. 
148. Mock sun. Sun-dog. 
148. Legion. The allusion is to Mark v, 9. 
148. Mill Brook. A brook which flowed through Concord. 

148. Go£fe or Whalley. These Englishmen were members of the Court 
which condemned King Charles I. They escaped to Cambridge, Massa- 
chusetts, and from there fled to New Haven, Connecticut, and later to 
Hadley, Massachusetts, in both of which places they lived in concealment. 
See Hawthorne's The Gray Champion. 

149. Simples. Medicinal herbs. 

149. Old Pau-rs. Thomas Parr. At his death in 1635, he was reputed to 
be one hundred and fifty-two years of age. 
149. Acheron. A river in Hades. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, p. 47. 

149. Dead Sea. In Palestine. This is one of the saltiest bodies of water 
in the world. 

150. Wild lettuce. The reference is to the myth that the birth of Hebe 
was due to the fact that Juno, her mother, at a banquet given by Jupiter, 
ate heartily of wild lettuce. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, IX. 



334 WALDEN 

151. Tremont or Astor or Middlesex House. The Tremont House was in 
Boston; the Astor, in New York City; the Middlesex, in Concord. 

152. Ricochet motion. The motion such as a skipping stone makes over 
the surface of the water. 

153. Cerberus. The three-headed, serpent-tailed watch dog that stood 
guard at the entrance to Hades. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, p. 47. 

153. Arrived there, etc. The quotation is from the Faerie Queen, I, 1, o:. 

153. Winslow, Edward (1595-1655). One of the settlers who came in the 
Mayflower. The quotation is from Alexander Young's Chronicles of the 
Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth. 

153. Visit of ceremony. This visit was made in 1621. 

155. Paphlagonian man. Paphlagonia was an ancient mountainous dis- 
trict of Asia Minor, incorporated into the Roman Empire in 65 B.C. The 
rulers of the country bore the name Pylaemenes to show that they claimed 
descent from the chieftain of that name who figures in Homer's Iliad as 
the leader of the Paphlagonians. 

155. Wood-chopper. In his Journal Thoreau writes: "Who should come 
to my lodge but a true Homeric boor, one of those Paphlagonian men. 
Alek Therien, he called himself." (Vol. I, p. 365.) 

155. Why are you in tears. Iliad, opening verse of Book XVI. 

159. Pecunia. From the Latin pecus, cattle. 

162. Proposed a book. In his Jourtial (Vol. Ill, pp. 215, 216), Thoreau 
writes: "As if it were any use, when a man failed to make any memorable 

impression on you, for him to leave his name No! I kept a 

book to keep their fames in." 

163. Com-munity. Thoreau infers that the origin of the word is from 
the Latin munire, to fortify. 

163. "Welcome Englishmen." These words were uttered by the Indian 
Chief, Samoset, when he entered Plymouth, March 16, 1621. 

164. Antaeus. Antaeus received his strength from contact with the 
Earth. For Hercules's contest with him cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, p. 220. 

164. Brought from Boston. Thoreau's father moved from Boston to 
Concord in 1823. See Sanborn's Henry D. Thoreau, p. 4. 

165. My flute. Thoreau played skilfully on the flute. Cf. Louisa M. 
Alcott's poem, Thoreau's Flute. 

166. Agricola laboriosus. Hardworking farmer. 

166. Lincoln and Wayland. Small towns within five or ten miles of 
Concord. 

166. Mr. Coleman's report. The Reverend Henry Coleman (1785-1849), was 
State Commissioner for the Agricultural Survey of Massachusetts. He 
published four reports. 

167. Rans des Vaches. Literally, "chime of the cows." A Swiss air 
played by herdsmen to call the cattle. 

167. Paganini, Nicolo (1784-1840). A celebrated Italian violinist. Espe- 
cially famous for making music on a single string. 



NOTES 335 

168. Tintinnabulum. Virgil's word is tinnitus, jingling. Cf. Georgia. 
Book IV. 

169. Spit a Mexican. Impale a Mexican soldier. Thoreau was living 
at Walden during the timfe the Mexican War w^s in progress (1846-1847). 

170. Not with cranes. An allusion to the annual struggle between the 
pygmies and the cranes. See Classical Dictionary. 

170. A Pythagorean. Pythagoras was a Greek philosopher of the sixth 
century B.C., who prohibited his followers from eating meat and fish and 
beans. 

170. Evelyn, John. See note p. Zi. 

171. Sir Kenelm Digby (1603-166S), was the first to observe the im- 
portance of atmospheric oxygen to the growth of plants. His work. Con- 
cerning the Vegetation of Plants, was published in 1661. 

171. Patrem familias ... esse oportet. A householder must be a 
seller, not a buyer. The quotation is from Cato's De Re Rustica, chap. 2. 

171. Plant the common small white bush bean. This paragraph is a 
half-playful imitation of the kind of advice that was given in farm 
journals. 

173. Ceres. The goddess of agriculture. Cf. Gzyl&y's Classic Myths, -^.AZ. 

173. Terrestrial Jove. Thus designated to distinguish him from Pluto, 
the Infernal Jove. 

173. Plutus. God of wealth. 

174. Varro. Marcus Terentius (116-28 B.C.), wrote Rerum Rusticarum. 

175. State Street. In Boston. 

175. Etesian winds. The regular northerly summer winds. The refer- 
ence is from ancient Greek and Latin literature. 

176. The vitals of the village were the grocery, etc. *'A11 this does not 
mean that Thoreau was a shy and faun-like creature; still less that he 
was a victim of misanthropy; it means only that often he found himself 
his own best companion, and was determined to resist those social im- 
portunities which, if a man submit to them, leave him no time for the 
development of the inner life and for quiet intellectual growth." — Payne. 

177. Orpheus. This incident occurred while Orpheus was sailing home 
with the Argonauts from capturing the golden fleece. Cf. The Life and 
Death of Jason by Morris. 

179. Elsewhere related. In "Resistance to Civil Government" (1849). 

179. Amok. Amuck. , ^ 

• 180. Nee bella fuerunt. Quoted from the elegies of Tribullus, I, x 7. 

181. To fresh woods and pastures new. Quoted from Milton's Lycidas. 

181. Coenobites. Members of religious orders living in conrents or 
communities. A pun. 

185. Michael Angelo. Referring to the characteristic over-develoiaaent 
of the muscles in this artist's figures. 

187. Castalian Fountain. A spring sacred to Apollo and the Muses. 

189. Divining-rod. A forked stick which was used to discover the 
presence of an underground vein of water. 



336 WALDEN 

Wt. The paver. The glacier which deposited the rocks. 

192. Fair-Haven. Fairhaven Pond, which is a widening of the Sudbury 
Kivcr in GDncord. 

19S. Invert your head. Thoreau was fond of this method of viewing 
landscape. 

198. Moore of Moore Hall. According to the old ballad, the knight who 
slew the Dragon of Wantley. 

202. Icarian Sea. Named from the flight of Icarus. Cf. Gayley's 
Classic Myths, p. 246. 

204. Kohinoor. A large diamond belonging to the British Crown. 

208. Vadhalla. The hall of Odin the abode of the Norse gods. 

207. Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571). A celebrated Italian goldsmith and 
sculptor. 

208. Thy entry is a pleasant field, etc. Quoted from William Ellery 
Channing's poem, Baker Farm. 

208. Musquash. Muskrat. 

208. And here a poet builded, etc. This quotation is also from Chan- 
ning's Baker Farm. 

212. Landscape where, etc. The quotation is again from Channing's 
Baker Farm. 

213. Talaria. Wings. 

214. Except for that wildness. For a discussion of this side of Thoreau's 
nature, read John Burrough's essay, Thoreau's Wildness. 

215. A finer way of studying ornithology. Read in this connection 
Emerson's Forbearance. 

216. Chaucer's nun. Should be Chaucer's monk. The quotation is from 
the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, lines 177, 178. 

216. Algonquins. A number of tribes of Indians that roved over the 
country north of the St. Lawrence River. 

216. Philzmthropic. Characterized by love of mankind. Thoreau here 
TQcang to indicate that he does not distinguish between his love for man 
and his lov'e for animals. 

218. Kirby and Spence. William Kirby and William Spence. Authors 
of an Introdxiction to Entomology, which was published 1826 

221. Ved. Veda. Cf. note, p. 105. 

221. Vedant, or Vedanta. The philosophy founded on the Veda. 

221. Thseng-tseu. A follower of Confucius. 

221. Not that food . . . defileth. An inexact quotation from Matthew 
\v, 11. 

222. Mencius. Latinized from Meng-Tse. A Chinese philosopher of 
the third century B.C. He was a leading teacher of Confucianism. 

223. How happy *s he, etc. Quoted from Dr. John Donne's Epistle 
To Sir Edward Herbert, since Lord Herbert of Cherbury. 

Z2S. A companion. William Ellery Channing, the poet, an intimate 
friend of Thoreau. 
226. Hermit. Thoreau himself. 



NOTES 337 

226. Bose. The farm dog. 

227. Con-fut-see. Confucius. 

228. Mem. Memorandum. 

228. Pilpajr & Co. Pilpay and other makers of fables. Pilpay (or Bidpai) 
is not a proper name but a title applied to a scholar and teller of tales in 
an Indian court. 

228. A wild native kind. White- footed or deer mouse. 

231. Not a duellum but a bellum. Not a duel but a war. 

231. Myrmidons. The followers of Achilles. 

232. Achilles . . . Patroclus. Because of a quarrel with Agamemnon, 
Achilles sulked in his tent. When he heard that Patroclus was killed, 
however, he hastened into the thick of the battle to avenge him. 

232. Austerlitz. In this battle, which was fought December 2, 1805, 
Napoleon defeated the forces of Russia and Austria. 

232. Dresden. In this battle, which was fought August 26, 27, 1813, 
Napoleon defeated the combined forces of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. 

233. Hotel des Invalides. A home for disabled soldiers, which is main- 
tained by the government of France. 

233. Kirby and Spence. See note, p. 218. 

234. Huber, Francois (1750-1831). A Swiss naturalist who was cele- 
brated for his observations on the honey bee. 

234. /EneeiS Sylvius (1405-1464). Occupied the Papal throne as Pius II. 
234. Olaus Magnus (1490-1558). A Swedish historian. 

234. Christiern the Second (1481-1559). King of Denmark and Norway, 
Often called Christian the Cruel. 

234. Fugitive-Slave Bill. Was made a law as a part of Clay's "Com- 
promise Bill" in 1850. This Bill had the support of Daniel Webster, to 
the great disgust of his friends. 

235. Horse. Pegasus. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, pp. 214, 215. 

240. Totem. Each Indian tribe had its distinguishing symbolical natural 
objects and animals. These the tribe carved on its totem poles. 

240. Ceres. The Roman goddess of agriculture. 

240. Minerva. The Greeks received through this Goddess the olive tree 
and the plow. 

242. A poet to board for a fortnight. Channing. Cf. note, p. 226. 

243. Keeping-room. Sitting-room. 

245. Parlaver. Flattery, deception. 

246. Unio fluviatilis. A variety of fresh-water clam. 

24i9. Vulcan. The god of fire, especially of terrestrial fire, Cf. Gayley's 
Classic Myths, p. 24-26, 

249. Terminus. The god of boundaries. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, p. 89. 

250. Gilpin, William (1724-1804), An English clergyman who wrote ex- 
tensively on the natural scenery of England, 

250. Vert- "woods, lawns," etc, 

250. Michaux, Andre (1746-1802). A French botanist who traveled in 
America and wrote a work on forest trees of the United States. 



338 WALDEN 

251. Goody Blake and Harry Gill. The reference is to the characters 
of Wordsworth's poem of the same name. 

251. Jump it. Hammer out the blade to a sharper edge. 

252. Light-winged Smoke. This is one of Thoreau's best poems. It was 
first published in the Dial for April, 1843. 

254. Never, bright flame. Quoted from Ellen II. Hooper's poem. 
The Wood-Fire. 

257. Scipio Africanus (237-183 B.C.). One ot Rome's greatest generals. 
After his defeat of Hannibal, the surname Africanus was bestowed upon 
him by the Roman people. 

258. Gond.bert. A long, tedious, epic poem, published in 1651. 

258. An uncle who goes to sleep shaving. See description in Chan- 
ning's Thoreau the Poet-Naturalist, pp. 22, 23. 

258. Chsdmers' collection. An enlarged edition of Johnson's Collection 
of the English Poets, with some additional lives, 21 vols., published in 
1810. Thoreau mastered this collection of poetry while in college. 

258. Nervii. The warlike inhabitants of Ancient Belgic Gaul conquered 
by Caesar. 

261. Bowl broken at the fountain. An allusion to Ecclesiastes, xii, 6. 

261. Reynard. The fox; the hero of the beast epics. 

261. Fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute. Quoted from Milton's 
Paradise Lost, Bk. ii, line 560. 

265. Woodchopper. Alek Therien. Cf. note, p. 120. 

265. Lon._ -headed farmer. Edmond Hosmer of Concord, a good friend 
of both Thoreau and Emerson. A descendant of one of the oldest families 
of Concord. 

265. Crack. A cozy, comfortable chat. 

265. Tried our teeth on many a nut. Tried to find a solution for some of 
the unsolved problems of the world. 

265. A poet. The reference is still to Channing. 

266. Last of the philosophers. Amos Bronson Alcott. See note, p. 60. 

267. Ingenuus. Latin, ' .e-born, candid, ingenuous. 

267. Pumpkin pine. Used in Maine to designate a certain quality of 

white pine which is clear and soft and destitute of resin. 

267. Flocks. Of wool. 

267. The old settler. Dame Nature. 

268. One other. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

268. The Visitor who never comes. A vague, mystical, ideal person 
for whom Thoreau was ev r senrching. 

268. Vishnu Purana. The best known of the later writings of the 
Hindoos. An illuminating manual of sectarian Brahmanism. 

269. Moose-yard. When the snow is deep the moose come together in 
herds, and trample the snow down so that they may the easier feed. 

270. Lingua vernacula. The language of the common people. 

276. Alarming the citadel. An allusion to the cackling of the geese, 
when the Gauls captured Rome in 390 B.C. 



NOTES 339 

274. Actseon. An allusion to the Greek myth of how a hunter sur- 
prised Diana at her bath, and of how he was changed into a stag by the 
injured goddess, and pursued and killed by his own hounds. 

276. Wast (Waste) Book. Day Book. The book was used by Ephraim 
Jones during the year 1742. Thoreau describes at length in his Journal 
many of the quaint entries which he found in this day book. Cf. Journal, 
Vol. VI., pp. 77-80, 94-96. 

276. 0-2-3. The figures indicate the price paid in pounds, shillings, pence. 

278. Lepus, levipes. A fanciful etymology. 

279. Nature puts no question. Cf. Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach. 
279. Marmots. Woodchucks. 

281. Trumpeted. The fish vender commonly blew a horn to call the 
attention of his customers to his approach. 

282. Two such Bottomless Ponds. White Pond and Tratt's Pond. 

282. A fifty-six. A fifty-six pound weight. The half of the olden 
"hundredweight." 

283. William Gilpin. See note, p. 250. 

283. So high as heaved, etc. Quoted from Milton's Paradise Lost, 
Bk. vii, 288-290. 

289. Hyperborean. Far northern. 

289. New England Farmer. The New England Farmer and Gardener's 
Journal, founded in 1821. 

289. The Cultivator. See note, p. 99. 

289. Sow a crop of winter rye. A little far fetched. Thoreau knew 
that winter rye was planted in the fall of the year. 

290. Tartarus. The lowest of the underworlds wherein were held the 
fallen Titans. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, pp. 5, 6. 

290. Cambridge. Fifteen miles east of Walden Pond, 

291. Valhalla. See note, p. 206. 
291. Estivate. Pass the summer. 

291. Fresh Pond. Situated in the outskirts of Cambridge. 

292. Bhagvat Geeta. See note, p. 76. 

292. Brahma and Vishnu and Indra. Three important gods of Hinduism. 

292. Atlantis. A mythical, fortunate island of the Blessed. See Plato's 
Timaeus. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, p. 52. 

293. Hesperides. A mythical island in the Far West where were 
guarded the Golden Apples. Cf. Gayley's Classic Myths, p. 57. 

293. The periplus of Hanno. His voyage along the west coast of Africa. 
Cf. note, p. 43. 

293. Ternate and Tidore. Islands of the Melanesian Archipelago. 

296. Stunned by a blow on it. The reference is to the common practice 
of stunning fish by striking the ice a hard blow immediately above them. 

298. Methuselah. Lived to be nine hundred and sixty-nine years old. 
Cf. Genesis, v. 27. 

300. Lobe. This passage is characteristic of Thoreau. He is ever fond 
of speculating as to the origin of words. 



340 WALDEN 

302. ChatnpolHon, Jean Francois. In 1822 by means of the Rosetta 
Stone, he discovered the key to the Egyptian hieroglyphics. 

303. Thor, In Scandinavian mythology, Thor is the God of Thunder. 
Our Thursday is named for this God. 

304. Et primitus orbitur, etc. "And for the first time the grass springs 
up, called forth by the early rains." The quotation is from Varro. 
Return Rusticarum, 2, 2, 14. 

305. Leuciscus. Dace. 

306. I mean he; I mean the twig. The individual robin; the particn 
lar twig. 

306. Turdus migratorius. The American Robin. Now classified as 
Planesticus migratorius. 

306. First spring night in the woods. March 26, 1846. 

307. Eurus ad Auroram. The quotation is from Ovid's Metamorphoses. 
Bk. i, 61, 62, 78-81. 

308. While such a sun, etc. The quotation is from Isaac Watts's Hymn 
88, Book i, in Hymns and Spiritual Songs. 

"And while the lamp holds out to burn. 
The vilest sinner may return." 

308. Entered into the joy of his Lord. The quotation is from Matthew 
XXV, 21, 23. 

309. The Golden Age, etc. Translated from Ovid's Metamorphoses. 
Bk. i, 89-96, 107, 108. 

309. Sticks which boys play with their fingers. Clappers or "bones." 

309. Merlin. In falconry, the sparrow-hawk. The bird which Thoreau 
is describing is the marsh hawk, Thoreau said that the sight of this 
bird in the Concord meadows was of more interest to him than the entry 
of the allies into Paris. 

310. Cupreous. Copper-colored. 

310. O Death, where is thy sting? etc. The quotation is from 1 
Corinthians, xv, 55. 
310. We need the tonic of wildness. See note, p. 82. 

312. Calidasa's drama of Sacontala. An ancient Sanskrit play. 

313. Terra del Fuego. Literally, land of fire. So named by the dis- 
coverer because he sighted Indian fires on the coast. 

313. Picking oakum. Preparing old rope ends for use in calking the 
seams of vessels. A good description of this work is found in Dana's 
Two Years Before the Mast, Chap. iii. 

313. Only great-circle sailing. We skim but the surface of things. 

■J14. Franklin, Sir John (1786-1847). Discoverer of the Northwest Pas- 
sage. He was lost in the Arctic Ocean. Before definite news of his fate 
had been received, as many as fifteen expeditions were sent out in search 
of him. 

314. Grinnell, Henry (1800-1874). An American merchant who fitted 
out two diflferent relief expeditions to search for Franklin. 



NOTES 341 

314. Mungo Park, A Scottish explorer who lost his life in 1806 whik 
discoveriiJg the source of the Niger River. 

314. Lewis and Clark made an exploring expedition through thr 
Northwest to the mouth of the Columbia River in 1804-1806. 

314. Frobisher, Sir Martin. An English explorer who tried to k>cati 
the Northwest Passage in 1576. 

314. South-Sea Exploring Expedition. An expedition fitted out by tht 
United States Government in 1838. During the four years that followed, 
this expedition explored the Pacific Ocean and its islands. 

315. Erret, et extremes, etc. The quotation is from Claudian's, On c« 
Old Man of Verona. 

315. Symmes* Hole. This hole was alleged by Symmes to be found 
at the North Pole. It was supposed to open into the concentric spheres 
of which the earth was thought to be composed. 

315. Explore thyself. "Know thyself." This is an old Greek maxim. 
It has been the battle cry of humanism ever since the Renaissance. 
See Babbitt's Literature and the American College, Chap. i. 

315. Mirabeau, Gabriel Riquetti (1749-1791). The greatest orator of the 
period of the French Revolution. 

316. My experiment. See notes, pp. 83 and 100. 

317. Bright. A common name for an ox. 

317. Extra-vagant. Literally, "wandering beyond." 

317. Translated. Literally, "carried across." 

318. Kabir. A Hindoo religious reformer. He lived at Benares between 
1488 and 1512, and attempted to construct a creed that would unite the 
Hindoos and the Mussulmans. 

319. Kalpa. A day of Brahma, equal to 4,320,000,000 of our years. 
319. Brahma had awoke and slumbered. Many Kalpas had passed. 
321. Creation widens. The quotation is from Blanco White's sonnet, 

"Night and Death." 

321. Crcesus. A King of Lydia in the sixth century B.C. He was so 
wealthy that his name has passed into proverb. 

321. In the repose ... a confused tintinnabulum. In this connection, 
one should remember that Thoreau also wrote: "I would not run round 
the corner to see the world blow up." However, when a powder-mill in 
the next town did blow up, he heard it, ran downstairs, jumped into a 
wagon, and drove post-haste to the scene of the disaster. 

322. Mameluke bey. The reference is to the single bey or officer of the 
warlike Mamelukes who escaped death by forcing his horse to leap the 
parapet when Mohamet AH massacred his comrades. The event occurred 
at Cairo, Egypt, in 1811, 

323. China pride. Thoreau means to say that mankind in general is as 
self-satisfied and as unprogressive t.s are the Chinese. 

325. John or Jonathan. John Bull or Brother Jonathan; the English 
or the American people. 



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